Species: Antonina nakaharai   Williams and Miller - Catalog

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Common name: Nakahara grass mealybug Field Characters: Field characters not recorded. Body broadly oval to circular; without lateral filaments; enclosed in a white, felted sac that usually has a thin, white waxy tube protruding through a hole in the ovisac at the posterior end of the body. Usually present at the nodes of bamboo shoots. Legs absent.
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Validation characters: Legs absent or represented by inconspicuous sclerotized area, sometimes with small setae; antennae reduced to 2 or 3 segments; spiracles with trilocular pores only, present in sclerotized band surrounding spiracular atrium; clusters of discoidals in ventrosubmarginal areas of metathorax to abdominal segments IV, V, or VI; with dorsomarginal band of multilocular pores around body; abdominal segments not forming sclerotized plate-like structures on segments III or IV to VIII; anal ring at apex of internal tube; with an average of 1 and range of 0 to 4 ventral multilocular pores within area delimited by lateral margin of discoidal pore clusters on each side of segment IV. Comparison: Antonina nakaharai is very similar to A. crawi Cockerell and A. socialis Newstead and has often been confused with them (WilliaMi2002). They can be separated as follows: A. nakaharai has an average of 1 and range of 0 to 4 ventral multilocular pores within area delimited by lateral margin of discoidal pore clusters on each side of segment IV (A. crawi has an average of 14 and a range of 6 to 24 pores, A. socialis has an average of 2 and a range of 0 to 7 pores); ventrosubmarginal clusters of discoidal pores present from metathorax to abdominal segments IV, V, or VI (A. crawi has clusters from metathorax to abdominal segments IV, V, or rarely VI, A. socialis has clusters from abdominal segment II to segments VII or VIII); row of dorsal multilocular pores on abdominal segment VII adjacent to intersegmental line between segments VII and VIII with an average of 0 and a range of 0 to 3 pores on each side of body (A. crawi has an average of 3 and a range of 0 to 7 pores on each side of body, A. socialis has an average of 6 and a range of 1 to 12 pores on each side of body). U.S. quarantine notes: This species is taken on a diversity of bamboo hosts. It has been intercepted from China and Japan. Several species of Antonina other than A. graminis and A. nakaharai have been taken at US ports-of-entry including: A. pretiosa Ferris (Burma, China, Cuba, and the Philippines on bamboo), A. purpurea Signoret (France and Italy on various grasses), and A. zonata Green (China on bamboo). References: WilliaMi2002; HendriKo1999; WilliaGr1992 (misidentified as A. crawi). All references mentioning: Antonina nakaharai
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