cockerelli (Šulc, 1909)

Type locality: USA, Colorado.

Additional distribution: USA, Arizona, California, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Wyoming; Canada, Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan; Mexico. Introduced in New Zealand.

Host plant: Various species of Solanaceae including Capsicum, Lycium, and Solanum species.

Remarks: A pest of potatoes, tomatoes, capsicum, and aubergine ( Solanaceae) (Liu & Trumble 2004, 2007); sporadic but potentially devastating outbreaks are known in greenhouses and potato growing areas of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and since 2006, New Zealand (Teulon et al. 2009). Heavy nymph infestations cause symptoms knows as potato yellows, and this species is known to vector a Candidatus Liberibacter bacterium (Hansen et al. 2008). Recorded in California in the 1950s (Jensen 1954).

Parasitoids: Metaphycus psyllidis Compere in California, and Tamarixia triozae (Burks) in Arizona.