Occurrence of males among Aeolothripidae (Thysanoptera), with description of the male of Aeolothrips afghanus.

A natural population of thrips, the insect order Thysanoptera, rarely comprises more than 30% males (Mound 2005), and this situation is particularly obvious in the family Aeolothripidae (Mound 1992). Thus for 46% of species of Aeolothripidae in Britain the male is not known (Mound et al. 1976). Aeolothrips is the most species-rich genus in this family, and males are not described for many species. For example, according to Bailey (1951), 13 out of 33 species of Aeolothrips in North America are known only from females, and males are not known for 9 out of 38 Aeolothrips species recorded from Europe (zur Strassen 2003). Species of Aeolothripidae are often collected in low numbers (Mound 1992), thus reducing the probability of a male being collected. So it is predictable that if a good series of specimens of a species can be collected, then a male is more likely to be found, even for those species of Aeolothrips in which the male is not yet known. Aeolothrips afghanus was described from two females collected at Kandahar, Afghanistan, in a semi desert area with sparse vegetation (Jenser 1984). Subsequently, the species was reported from Iran, but without any data on the number, or sex of the specimens collected (Kheyrandish Koshkoei et al. 2000). Morover, one female of this species has been reported from United Arab Emirates (zur Strassen & van Harten 2008). The male of A. afghanus has recently been collected on a species of Suaeda at Isfahan, in central Iran (see also Minaei 2013; Minaei et al. 2012). The purpose of this paper is to describe this male, and to discuss the relationship of this species with other species of Aeolothrips. The specimens discussed here are deposited in Department of Plant Protection, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, with one male in the Australian National Insect Collection, Canberra. Full nomenclatural information about Thysanoptera is available on the web at ThripsWiki (2013).