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THE ORANGE ALEYRODES. 



(Aleyrodes citri ii. sp.) 

 Order Homoptkra : Family Aleyrodid^. 



It has beeu our inteution for some time to prepare an editorial paper 

 on the curious little insects of this family, and we begin with Miiat is 

 perhaps the most important of the species in the United States. The 

 family Aleyrodid.i^ is not a large one, although its sj)ecies are of the 

 greatest interest structurally and of frequent importance economically. 

 Up to the present time less than fifty species .have been described, and 

 only four of our Xorth American species have received names. All of 

 the described forms have been placed in the genus Aleyrodes except 



Fig. 23.— Aleyrodes citri Riley and Howard: a, orange leaf badly infested by fiill-grown larvae— nat- 

 ural size ; b, outline of egg ; c, young larva in tlie act of hatching from egg ; d, newly hatched larva 

 seen from below— enlarged ; c, leg of d; /, antenna of d— still more enlarged; g, advanced pupa; h, 

 adult nearly ready to emerge and seen through pupa skin; i, adult with wings still unfolded in the act 

 of emerging from pupa shell — enlarged; j, leg of h — still more enlarged (original). 



three species, for which Signoret erected the genus Spondyliaspis 

 (afterwards found to tall before Maskell's Ingliua, erroneously supposed 

 by the latter to belong to the Coccid«), and two other species for which 

 Mr. A. C. F. Morgan has erected the genus Aleurodicus [Ent. Month. 

 Mag., vol. xxviii, pp. 29-33, 1892). One of the American species, 

 Shimer's A. asarumis, we also find to belong to Aleurodicus. 



For many years an important and interesting species of the type 

 genus has been known to infest orange trees in Florida and in more 

 northern greenhouses, and more recently the same form has appeared 

 in injurious numbers in the orange groves of Louisiana. In the Florida 

 Dispatch, new series, vol. xi, November, 1885, this species received the 

 name of Aleyrodes citri at the hands of Mr. Ashmead. The Florida 

 Dispatch, however, is a local newsj)aper of no scientific pretensions, 



