Kingdom Animalia Class Insecta Superfamily Coccoidea | Phylum Arthropoda Order Hemiptera Rank Family | |
Similar Halimococcidae, Lecanodiaspididae, Aenictopecheidae | ||
Conchaspididae is a small and relatively unstudied family of scale insects.
Contents
Description
Members of the family Conchaspididae secrete a waxy scale, in common with other scale insects, but the secreted scle does not include the exuvia.
Ecology
Five of the 30 species are parasites on palms, but none are considered pests. Conchaspis cordiae infests mahogany trees and has been accidentally introduced to Florida from the Caribbean, but does not appear to cause serious damage.
Taxonomic history
Carl Linnaeus described a single member of the family, now called Conchaspis capensis, in his Centuria Insectorum, but no further species were described until the 1890s. Eleven of the 29 species currently recognised were insects from Madagascar, described by Raymond Mamet. This probably reflects the sampling effort rather than a particular diversity of conchaspidid scale insects on Madagascar.
Conchaspididae was first recognised as a subfamily of the family Coccidae, but it was raised to the rank of family by Gordon Floyd Ferris in 1937.