Aphids are small members of the
Insect Order Hemiptera (True Bugs) which feed by sucking sap from host Plants.
They are often considered serious agricultural pests due to their very high
reproduction rates, which can lead to them overwhelming plants rapidly and
makes them very hard to eradicate. Most Aphids are alate (wingless) viviparous
females, which are capable of giving birth to clones of themselves, which are
very close to the adult stage and can feed immediately and give birth to new
clones within weeks or sometimes days. At the end of summer Aphids produce a
sexual generation, comprising ovivaporous (egg laying) females which lay eggs,
the overwintering stage. The eggs hatch the next spring producing apterous
viviparous females and males, which disperse in search of new host plants, mate
and give birth to live wingless females, beginning the cycle again.
In a paper published in the
journal Zootaxa on 17 February 2015, Juan Nieto Nafría, Marta Aldea and Marta
Castro of the Departamento de Biodiversidad y Gestión Ambiental at the Universidad de León describe a new species of Aphid from southern Spain and southeastern
France.
The new species is placed in the
genus Acyrthosiphon and given the
specific name pilosum, meaning
‘hairy’. The species is described from 154 wingless and 39 wingled viviparous
and three oviviparous females from France and twelve wingless viviparous
females from Spain, all collected from species of Ononis (Restharrows). Wingless viviparous females range from 2.400 – 3.725
mm in length, winged females were 2.125 – 3.525 mm and oviviparous females were
2.400 – 2.600 mm; all were green in colour.
Acyrthosiphon pilosum (left)
apterous viviparous female: (A) habitus; (B) antenna, proximal; (C) rostrum,
distal; (D) marginal zone of abdominal segment 1–5, with marginal tubercles; (E)
end of tibia and tarsus (in part) of a hind leg; (F) siphunculus; (G) cauda,
and anal and genital (in part) plates, (right) (A–B) alate viviparous female, (C–D)
oviparous female: (B) III antennal segment; (D) hind tibia. Nieto Nafría et al. (2015).
See also…
A new species of Fern-feeding Aphid from Thailand. Aphids are small Hemipteran Insects (True Bugs) that live on plants, draining sap with specialized mouthparts. They can reproduce extremely rapidly as they are...
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