Female macropterous; body color mainly brown, yellowish on thorax, and abdomen darkening until the almost black tube; head and legs yellowish to light brown, mid and hind tibiae darker than their respective femora; antennomere I yellow, II and III brownish yellow, IV light brown, V–VII brown; wings light brown, darker basally and marginally. Antennae 8-segmented, antennomere III with 2 and IV with 4 sense cones. Head slightly longer than wide; postocular setae longer than eyes, remaining head setae short; maxillary stylets V-shaped, more than half of head width apart. Pronotum with 5 pairs of well-developed setae, anteromarginal pair very short, epimeral pair is the longest. Metanotum weakly reticulated, with a pair of short median setae. Metathoracic sternopleural sutures present. Pelta broad, with basal wings, weakly reticulated; abdominal tergites II–VII with 1 pair of wing-retaining setae. Tube cone-shaped, about 1.7x as long as basal width, with few minute setae laterally. Fore legs slightly enlarged, fore tarsi without a tooth. Fore wings with about 10 duplicated cilia.
Male apterous. Similar to female but with stouter fore legs, fore tarsi with a well-developed tooth. Pore plates absent.
Intraspecific variation
Unknown.
Genus and similar species information
Neosmerinthothrips is a genus with 24 species, occurring in the tropics and Australia. The species have well developed metathoracic sternopleural sutures, and a robust tube with convex margins, comparable to those seen in Acallurothrips and Pygothrips species. Neosmerinthothrips is differentiated from Acallurothrips for having antennomeres VII and VIII clearly distinct from each other and the tube not as strongly swollen, and from Pygothrips for having the maxillary stylets far apart and V-shaped. Neosmerinthothrips diversicolor differs from the other Brazilian species by having yellowish head and legs, paler than the rest of the body. A key to some species of Neosmerinthothrips, including most of the ones recorded in Brazil, is available in Mound (1974).
