Male macropterous; body color mainly dark brown, including legs; wings yellowish with brown median line. Antennae 8-segmented, antennomere III and IV much longer than the other segments. Head longer than wide, cone-shaped, strongly projected ahead of eyes; cheeks with stout and short setae; eyes large, not projected ventrally. Prosternal basantra present. Metathoracic sternopleural sutures absent. Abdominal tergites II–VII with 2 pairs of wing-retaining setae and several smaller accessory setae. Tube cone-shaped, about 4x as long as basal width, without lateral setae. Fore legs swollen, with many setae, fore tarsi with a long tooth. Fore wings with many duplicated cilia.
Female not studied.
Intraspecific variation
Unknown.
Genus and similar species information
Elaphrothrips is the Idolothripinae genus with the most described species, with almost 150 species widely distributed across tropical and subtropical regions. These thrips are usually large and dark-colored, distinguished from other Brazilian Idolothripinae (except Saurothrips) for having two pairs of wing-retaining setae on the abdominal tergites; in larger specimens, many accessory setae may be present in addition to the main wing-retaining pairs. Besides that, they have elongated head, major ocellar setae posterior to the anterior ocellus, basantra present, and tube shorter than the head, without lateral setae. Many species have high morphological diversity associated to size, wing-development and sex, which makes the distinction between species harder; and it is possible that many species in the genus will be identified as synonyms in the future.
Elaphrothrips schotti is one of the few brazilian species in this genus with the head projection anterior to eyes longer than wide, together with E. amazonicus, E. gracilis and E. nitidus. Unfortunately, the original description of this species is insufficiently detailed, and the type specimen is apparently lost; thus, it is not possible to clearly differentiate it from the other Elaphrothrips species mentioned here.
