Carulaspis silvestrii Lupo, 1966

Nucifora, Salvatore, Mazzeo, Gaetana, Kaydan, Mehmet B., Ricupero, Michele & Russo, Agatino, 2025, Carulaspis silvestrii Lupo (Hemiptera, Coccomorpha, Diaspididae): redescription and neotype designation, with a key to Carulaspis MacGillivray species, ZooKeys 1228, pp. 127-138 : 127-138

Carulaspis silvestrii Lupo, 1966

Figs 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6

Neotype designation.

Having established that there are no type specimens of Carulaspis silvestrii Lupo, 1966 that bear the name, a neotype of this taxon was designated in accordance with the provisions of Article 75 of The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature ( International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 1999). The qualifying reasons for this proposal are as follows: (i) the neotype is designed to clarify the taxonomic status of C. silvestrii compared to other species of the same genus; (ii) data (i. e., labelled text on the permanent microscopic slide of the neotype) and morphological description of C. silvestrii given in the present paper are appropriate to ensure recognition of the specimen here designed as neotype; (iii) most co-authors of the present publication belong to the Department of Agriculture, Food & Environment (formerly Faculty of Agriculture), University of Catania, where Prof. V. Lupo worked and where his collection of Diaspididae scales is deposited; they acquired here the certainty that the name-bearing type specimens of C. silvestrii have never been found, so assuming they were lost; (iv) the proposed neotype is designated from the type locality and host plant from which this species was recorded; it is obtained from a dry original sample collected and labelled by Prof. V. Lupo on November 3, 1964, mounted by us on a permanent microscopical slide using Canada balsam medium; (v) it is thereby declared that the designated neotype is the property of the University of Catania, where it is preserved at the Section of Applied Entomology, the Department of Agriculture, Food & Environment (Di 3 A), where a research entomological collection is available, with facilities for the preservation of name-bearing type specimens which are accessible for their study.

Material examined.

Neotype (here designated): Italy, Sicily • adult female, neotype of Carulaspis silvestrii ; right label [red label]: on Juniperus / macrocarpa Sm. / Sicily, ITALY / Bosco Gravina [currently part of The Irminio River Nature Reserve] / Donnalucata (RG) / 3. xi. 1964 / V. Lupo leg.; left label [red label]: Carulaspis silvestrii / Lupo, 1966 / NEOTYPE / Di 3 A UniCT / S. Nucifora, des.; deposited at Di 3 A UNICT (Fig. 1 ).

Other material.

Italy, Sicily • 13 adult females (topotypes); 3 Nov. 1964; Ragusa province, Donnalucata, Bosco Gravina ; V. Lupo leg.; on Juniperus macrocarpa ; 8 specimens deposited at Di 3 A UNICT , 1 specimen at LIB-ZMH, 1 specimen at MNHN, 1 specimen at BMNH, 2 specimens at CU-Sic • 2 adult females (topotypes); 7 Oct. 1997; Ragusa province, Donnalucata, The Irminio River Nature Reserve ; S. Nucifora leg.; on J. macrocarpa ; deposited at Di 3 A UNICT • 2 adult females (topotypes); 16 Jan. 2023; S. Nucifora leg., Ragusa province, Donnalucata, The Irminio River Nature Reserve ; 36 ° 46.46 ' N, 14 ° 35.68 ' E; alt. ca 5 m a. s. l.; on J. macrocarpa ; deposited at Di 3 A UNICT • 5 adult females; 16 Mar. 2023; S. Nucifora leg.; Ragusa province, Donnalucata ; 36 ° 46.58 ' N, 14 ° 36.42 ' E; alt. ca 18 m a. s. l.; on × Cupressocyparis leylandii (A. B. Jacks. & Dallim.) Dallim (new host association); deposited at Di 3 A UNICT .

Redescription of Carulaspis silvestrii adult female.

Appearance in life. Adult female cover rather circular, slightly convex, white; with central exuviae, yellow; ventral veil often absent, sometimes reduced to a thin white partial residue. Male cover elongate, white, felted and with 1 or 3 longitudinal ridges, with apical exuvia, yellow. Body of adult female yellow or reddish-brown. On needle-like leaves and cones.

Slide-mounted characters of the adult female (Figs 2 – 6 ). Body oval, longer than wide, slightly turbinate. The greatest width of the body is generally at the level of metathorax. Segment 1 of the abdomen and the thorax generally of similar width. Stronger intersegmental narrowing at margin between abdominal segments 1–2 and 3–4. The first and second pairs of lobes well-developed; third and fourth lobes represented by sclerotized raised areas. Median lobes not yoked, generally a little bit longer than wide, with medial and lateral margins parallel or diverging slightly, without evident notches, separated by space 0.4–0.9 times width of median lobe. Second lobes bilobed, without notches, with medial lobule about same size as median lobe. Third lobes reduced to a projecting ridge, sometimes with few light serrations on lateral margin, with two rounded apices as trace of lobules, without medial notches. Fourth lobes as a marginal thickening with only one rounded distal apex, sometimes with a light trace of lobules and with few small serrations on lateral margin; small paraphyses on the developed lobes. Dorsal seta laterad of median lobes never extending beyond apex of lobes. Anal opening located 2.2–4.0 times length of anal opening from base of median lobes, anal opening 8–13 µm long. Macroducts located in body margin and submarginal and submedial areas of abdomen, with total of 50–120 ducts on each side of body, counting all macroduct orifices anterior to anal opening. Dorsal macroducts of 2 sizes, larger size macroducts present in marginal areas of segments 4 to 8, smaller size macroducts located near body margin in submarginal areas and in submedial areas of segments 2–5, generally absent on submarginal and submedial areas of segments 6 or 7; with one macroduct between median lobes 10–13 µm long, one macroduct in first space 11–15 μm long, with 8–13 on each side of pygidium on segments 5 to 8. Microducts in dorsal surface located in medial area among head and prothorax, with a cluster of 7–13 ducts and in medial or submedial areas, from mesothorax to segment 1, and with 5–10 ducts on each side of body. Pygidial microducts absent on dorsum. Ventral microducts on pygidium located in submarginal areas of segments 5 and 6, with 2–4 ducts on each side of body, and in submedial areas on segment 5, at level of the vulva, with 1 or 2 ducts, on each side of body; present in medial and submedial areas of thorax and prepygidium, with 9–16 ducts. Macroducts in ventral side, similar to small-size macroducts on dorsum, located on margin and submargin of any of segments 3, 2 or 1. Vulva opening lies 0.5–0.6 times of the length of the ventral side of the pygidium at the beginning of the free margin. Perivulvar pores, in 5 rounded groups, 19–34 pores on each side of body. Crenulae present on ventral side of pygidium in median position, anteriorly to the vulva opening. Hardly noticeable crenulae sometimes present on medial area of prepygidial sternites. Spiracles. Anterior, with 1 or 2 perispiracular pores, posterior without pores. Antennae. Tubercle-like, with 2 short, thin setae, and 1 conspicuous curved seta, which is basally divided into 2 setae (Figs 5 – 6 ). Gland-spine formula mainly 3-2 - 1; on first space rarely present only 2 gland spines, on second space occasionally only 1 and on third space sometimes 2. Other marginal gland spines on each side of body are: 1–3 on segment 5; 2–4 on segment 4; 1–5 on segment 3 with some element sometimes in submarginal position; submarginal gland spines 0–3 ventrally on segments 2, with some element occasionally in marginal position. Rarely, gland spine with two glandular ducts. Without gland spines between median lobes. Eyes absent.

Comments.

In the genus Carulaspis , the more conspicuous antennal seta of the adult female is divided at the base (Figs 5 , 6 ); it remains to be verified whether this is also the case in C. taxicola . For the latter, only a limited number of incompletely detailed photographs of two syntypes were available for observation. In Diaspididae , such an antennal feature is reported at least for: Crassaspis multipora (Ferris) , Diaspis texensis (Cockerell) , Furchadaspis zamiae (Morgan) ( Ferris 1937) ; Getulaspis bupleuri (Marchal) , Voraspis ceratoniae (Marchal) and Voraspis nerii (Newstead) ( Balachowsky 1954) . Based on some occasional observations, it was found in: D. boisduvalii Signoret , D. bromeliae (Kerner) , D. echinocacti (Bouché) , Epidiaspis gennadii (Leonardi) , E. leperii (Signoret) and Mohelnaspis ampelodesmae (Newstead) .

Carulaspis silvestrii was confirmed on the host indicated by Lupo (1966) and recorded as a new host association on Leyland cypress, × Cupressocyparis leylandii .

Carulaspis silvestrii is close to C. juniperi and somewhat similar to C. visci and C. minima ; it differs in having the body of the adult female more elongate and less turbinate, in the presence of three gland spines on the first spaces (between the median lobe and the second lobe), the absence of gland spines between median lobes. The gland spines between the median lobes are also lacking in C. atlantica , which generally looks more distant from its congeners; it has a rounder body and different size and shape of median lobes. Carulaspis silvestrii differs from C. atlantica and C. visci also by the absence of submarginal dorsal macropores after segment 5 in adult females, and from C. minima in having a median macropore between the L 1. The body shape of the adult female of C. taxicola greatly differs from that of C. silvestrii , with the prosoma and prepygidium tending to be wider, and the pygidium particularly acute. In addition, the number of marginal and submarginal ducts on the first abdominal segment is different in the two species.

The morphological similarity of adult females of the genus Carulaspis and the vagueness of their descriptions by previous authors have led to great nomenclatural confusion and unclear definitions ( Danzig 1993). In addition, the intraspecific variability of its species may overlap among taxa, such as the number and arrangement of marginal and submarginal macroducts ( Boratyński, 1957) and of gland spines, which show a small range of variability in number, which is reduced and becomes exceptional or null in the last segments of the pygidium.

Molecular characterization.

Based on 28 S sequence data, C. silvestrii and C. juniperi collected from different hosts in Sicily shared a haplotype with 99.02 % identity. The resulting sequences were aligned to reference sequences from NCBI and compared with publicly available data on GenBank yielding an identity score of 99.2 % and E-value = 0.0 with C. juniperi isolate from USA (Accession number DQ 145301.2).

Figures

Figure 1. The slide of the neotype of Carulaspis silvestrii Lupo, 1966.

Figure 2. Carulaspis silvestrii Lupo, 1966, neotype, adult female showing features of the dorsum on the left side and those of the venter on the right A habitus B detail of pygidial margin and submargin.

Figure 3. Carulaspis silvestrii Lupo, 1966, specimen showing detail of pygidial margin, dorsal side, segments 6–8. Scale bar: 25 µm. (a few drops of hardened glue are visible on the sample).

Figure 4. Carulaspis silvestrii Lupo, 1966, specimen showing detail of pygidial margin, ventral side, segments 6–8. Scale bar: 25 µm.

Figure 5. Carulaspis silvestrii Lupo, 1966, specimen showing antenna. Scale bar: 5 µm.

Figure 6. Carulaspis silvestrii Lupo, 1966, specimen showing antenna detail. Scale bar: 2.5 µm.