Body brown, including legs; head and prothorax somewhat darker; antennal segments largely brown, except for III, which is paler; fore wings uniformly brown. Head small and eyes with few facets. Antennae 7-segmented, unusually long and slender; III with a circumpolar sensoria placed ventrally and IV with a simple sense cone. Pronotum trapezoidal and covered with tubercles; two pairs of short and expanded setae arising from tubercles. Fore wing without visible veins. Posterior margin of pronotum, metanotum and abdominal tergites I–VIII with a row of narrow lobes. Female without external serrate ovipositor. Both sexes usually wingless; female sometimes macroptera.
Male with five transverse pore plates on each abdominal sternites III–VII; tergite IX with a pair of stout processes posteromedially.
Intraspecific variation
Not recorded.
Genus and similar species information
Uzelothrips scabrosusis the unique extant member of the family Uzelothripidae, and the systematic position of this taxon is obscure (Mound & Morris 2007). The structure of the antennae, abdomen and fore wing is remarkable and it is not found in and any other living Thysanoptera. A fossil Uzelothrips species, U. eocenicus, was recently described from Eocene amber found in Northern France (Nel et al. 2013).
World distribution
Described from Brazil; has been also recorded in Angola, Australia, Indonesia and Singapore.
Lives on dead twigs and presumably feeds on fungi.
Economic importance
Not recorded.
References suggested
Mound LA, Heming BS & Palmer JM (1980) Phylogenetic relationships between the families of recent Thysanoptera. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society of London 69: 111–141.
Mound LA & Marullo R (1996) The Thrips of Central and South America: An Introduction. Memoirs on Entomology, International 6: 1–488.
Nel P, Schmidt AR, Bassler C & Nel A (2013) Fossil thrips of the family Uzelothripidae suggest 53 million years of morphological and ecological stability. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 58 (3): 609–614.
Published in: 21/12/2016 Posted by: Mariana Lindner
