Dysmicoccus brevipes (Cockerell, 1893) Coccoidea

Culik, Mark P. & Gullan, Penny J., 2005, A new pest of tomato and other records of mealybugs (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) from Espírito Santo, Brazil, Zootaxa 964 (1), pp. 1-8 : 4

Dysmicoccus brevipes

(pineapple mealybug)

is a pantropical pest of pineapple ( Mau & Kessing 1992). It is found throughout Brazil (including Espírito Santo) where it is commonly known as the “cochonilha do abacaxi” ( Silva et al. 1968; Scardini 1983; Ben­Dov 2004c). D. brevipes is polyphagous and has been recorded from a very wide range of host plant species besides pineapple, including Cucurbitaceae ( Ben­Dov 2004c) . Adult females of D. brevipes have plump, convex, pinkish bodies, covered with white powdery wax, surrounded by 17 pairs of short wax filaments; the terminal filaments are longer than the lateral filaments but less than half as long as the body ( Zimmerman 1948; Mau & Kessing 1992; Miller et al. 2005a). This species is especially important as a vector of pineapple mealybug wilt disease ( Zimmerman 1948; Beardsley 1965; Mau & Kessing 1992). All of about a dozen pineapple plants at the Manguinhos collection site appeared to be infested by D. brevipes and had developed symptoms of pineapple mealybug wilt disease (wilting of leaves, with little or no growth of the plants in the months following the initial observation of the infestation).