Weitschatus stigmatus and Hoffeinsia foldii(Hemiptera:Coccomorpha)from Eocene ambers are conspecific

Based on a comparison of morphologies of the first-instar nymph of Hoffeinsia foldii Koteja,2008 and the adult male of Weitschatus stigmatus Koteja,2008 with those of Qinococcus podocarpus Wu,2022,the author considers that Weitschatus stigmatus is equivalent to Hoffeinsia foldii,syn.nov.(Weitschatidae).

Parasitized wasp mitogenomes mistaken for scale insect host mitogenome sequences

The mitogenome is a double strand molecule that has become an extensively studied molecular marker used in the study of the phylogeny of insects.A recent study investigated the mitogenomes of Planococcus citri(Risso,1813)and Unaspis yanonensis(Kuwana,1923)published by PeerJ(Liu et al.2020).In our study,we determine that the putative“P.citri and U.yanonensis”mitogenomes did not originate from Coccoidea but from parasitic wasps in the Chalcidoidea.These results are based on the genetic distances of the barcoding sequences of cytochrome c oxidase I(COI)and on molecular identifications performed against the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool(BLAST)in NCBI.

Description of two new species of Newsteadia Green(Hemiptera:Coccomorpha:Ortheziidae)from China with a key to Chinese species

This study reported two new species:Newsteadia multipori Zheng&Wu,sp.nov.,collected from pine needle litter in Guizhou Province,are described and illustrated for its adult female,male,and first-,second-and third-instar nymphs;N.chebalingensis Zheng&Wu,sp.nov.,collected from broad leaf litter in Guangdong Province,are described and illustrated for its adult female and first-instar nymph.Identification keys are provided to the adult females of Newsteadia species known in China and to the adult males of Newsteadia species known worldwide.

Characterization of the first mitochondrial genome of Aclerdidae (Hemiptera: Coccoidea) with a novel gene arrangement

Scale insects comprise a diverse group of insects within superfamily Coccoidea in the suborder Sternorrhyncha,many of them are important pests of economic crops.The advent in next-generation sequencing(NGS)technologies has revolutionized conventional phylogenomic researches,causing a rapid accumulation of sequenced insect mitochondrial genomes.However,there have been few studies on the mitochondrial genome of diverse scale insect groups.By using NGS methods,the complete mitochondrial genome of Nipponaclerda biwakoensis was obtained in this study,representing the first mtDNA of the family Aclerdidae.The whole mitochondrial genome is 16,654 bp in length with an A+T content of 81.3%,including 13 protein-coding genes(PCGs),2 ribosomal RNAs,17 transfer RNAs and a control region.All PCGs begin with typical ATN codons and use standard TAA as their termination codons,except nad1 gene stopping with TAG.Meanwhile,this mitochondrial genome shows a unique gene rearrangement with a long fragment(trnP-trnC-trnI-nad2-trnY-trnT)insertion in the conserved region nad6-cob,which is novel to Hemiptera,even Insecta.The phylogeny reconstruction of Sternorrhyncha based on 13 PCGs and 2 rRNAs under Bayesian Inference method support a robust topology that Aleyrodoidea is the earliest branch of Sternorrhyncha,with Psylloidea as the sister group of the(Aphidoidea+Coccoidea)clade.