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29 Orders of Insects: Thysanoptera

Photo of a thrips (Thysanoptera)
Adult male thrips (Thysanoptera: Tubulifera) [Photo: Alandmanson, CC BY 4.0 , Wikimedia Commons].

 

Cladogram with Thysanoptera highlighted
Cladogram highlighting Thysanoptera. Adapted from Gullan, PJ & Cranston PS (2014). The insects: an outline of entomology (5th ed.). Wiley Blackwell.

Order Thysanoptera (Thrips)

Thysanoptera

  • common name: thrips. Singular is thrips as well: “one thrips among many thrips”
  • Greek: thysanos=fringe, ptera=wing
  • diversity: about 6000 spp. worldwide; about 900 in Australia
  • can be serious pests of crops
  • most species phytophagous but some predators, a few omnivores
  • some feed on mosses, ferns fungi, pollen, flower or leaf tissue
  • gall formers:  the gall provides insect shelter from weather and enemies

Two suborders: 

Terebrantia – wings parallel at rest; saw-like ovipositor

Tubulifera – wings overlap at rest, ovipositor eversible, cylindrical

Characteristics of Thysanoptera

Adults

  • Small (0.5-15mm), slender, cylindrical body
  • head elongate, hypognathous; mouthparts modified to form a feeding tube with three stylets:  the maxillary laciniae plus the left mandible
  • short antennae; compound eyes small to large, ocelli present in winged species
  • With or without wings; if present, wings subequal, strap-like, with long setal fringe around the edge
  • legs short, gressorial; pretarsus has a protrusible, adhesive arolium (bladder) instead of a tarsal claw

Immatures

  • Immature stages (nymphs) resemble small adults
photo of a thrips nymph
A thrips nymph (Thysanoptera:Terebrantia) [Photo: M.J., CC BY-SA 2.0 DE, Wikimedia Commons].

More about thrips from the Australian Museum and the CSIRO: Thrips (CSIRO)

Need to identify thrips? See Thrips of Australia.

Topic review

Do you know?

  • the main anatomical features of thrips

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