Conchaspididae

Conchaspididae
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Hemiptera
Suborder:	Sternorrhyncha
Superfamily:	Coccoidea
Family:	Conchaspididae Green, 1896
Genera[1]
Asceloconchaspis Williams, 1992 Conchaspis Cockerell, 1893 Fagisuga Lindinger, 1909 Paraconchaspis Mamet, 1959

Conchaspididae is a small family of scale insects known as false armoured scales because of their resemblance to Diaspididae (but not incorporating exuviae on their body).[2]

Description

Members of the family Conchaspididae secrete a waxy scale, in common with other scale insects, but the secreted scale does not include the exuviae.[3]

Ecology

Five of the 30 species are parasites on palms, but none are considered pests.[4] Conchaspis cordiae infests mahogany trees and has been accidentally introduced to Florida from the Caribbean, but does not appear to cause serious damage.[2]

Taxonomic history

Carl Linnaeus described a single member of the family, now called Conchaspis capensis, in his Centuria Insectorum, but no further species were described until the 1890s.[5] Eleven of the 29 species currently recognised were insects from Madagascar, described by Raymond Mamet. This probably reflects the sampling effort rather than a particular diversity of conchaspidid scale insects on Madagascar.[5]

Conchaspididae was first recognised as a subfamily of the family Coccidae, but it was raised to the rank of family by Gordon Floyd Ferris in 1937.[5]

References

1. D. J. Williams (1992). "A new genus and species of Conchaspididae (Hemiptera: Coccoidea) from Florida, remarkable in lacking legs". Journal of Natural History. 26 (6): 1325–1331. doi:10.1080/00222939200770751.
2. John L. Capinera, ed. (2008). "West Indies Mahogany Scale, Conchaspis cordiae Mamet (Hemiptera, Conchaspididae)". Encyclopedia of Entomology, Volume 1. Gale virtual reference library (2nd ed.). Springer. pp. 2265–2266. ISBN 978-1-4020-6242-1.
3. Gordon Floyd Ferris (1955). "Conchaspididae". Atlas of the Scale Insects of North America, Volume VII. Stanford University Press. pp. 66–68. ISBN 978-0-8047-1667-3.
4. F. W. Howard; D. Moore; R. M. Giblin-Davis; R. G. Abad (2001). "Conchaspididae". Insects on palms. CABI Publishing Series. CAB International. p. 189. ISBN 978-0-85199-326-3.
5. Yair Ben-Dov (2006). "Conchaspididae". A systematic catalogue of eight scale insect families (Hemiptera: Coccoidea) of the world: Aclerdidae, Asterolecaniidae, Beesoniidae, Carayonemidae, Conchaspididae, Dactylopiidae, Kerriidae and Lecanodiaspididae. Elsevier. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-444-52836-0.