Body mainly yellow with ocellar area shaded light brown, antecostal ridges on abdominal tergites II–VI brown with yellowish brown areas posterolaterally; antennal segment I yellow, II yellowish brown, III light brown with base and apex brown, IV light brown on basal half but brown on apical half, V brown with base light brown, VI–VIII brown; fore wing uniformly pale brownish grey. Head with occipital apodeme not touching posterior margin of compound eyes; ocellar setae pair III on external margins of ocellar triangle, which is smooth. Pronotum closely striate with indistinct pronotal blotch; mesonotum striate, median setal pair anterior to the lateral; metanotum anterior half transversely striate, posterior half longitudinally striate, two pairs of setae on anterior margin; metasternal plate with very shallow anterior emargination. Fore wing second vein with two setae. Abdominal tergites II–VI with comb of microtrichia incomplete medially, comb complete on VII–VIII; tergite IX with 2 pairs of mid-dorsal setae; sternites III–VII with no microtrichia medially.
Male similar to female; sternites without pore plates.
Intraspecific variation
Not recorded.
Genus and similar species information
Almost 120 species are included in Neohydatothrips, most from tropical countries (Mound & Tree 2009). All of them have the abdominal sternites and lateral thirds of tergites covered by rows of fine microtrichia, with many of them being bicoloured and with banded fore wings. Neohydatothrips sulcus is similar to N. luculentus and N. zucchi, but has shorter sensoria on the antennal segments. A key to the Neotropical species of Neohydatothrips is provided by Lima & Mound (2016).
