32 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society Vol. XII 



A NEW SERICOTHRIPS (THYSANOPTERA) FROM 

 AFRICA. 



By J. Douglas Hood, U. S. Biological Survey. 



The following description of an interesting little species of 

 thrips taken in Africa by Lieut. Arthur W. Jobbins-Pomeroy of 

 the Nigeria Regiment has been in manuscript for nearly two years, 

 and is published at this time, in advance of a more extensive paper 

 on the species of the same region, for the reason that the insect 

 is the first of its genus to be recorded from beyond the limits of 

 the Holarctic faunal realm. 



The writer is indebted to Lt.-Col. Sir David Prain, Director of 

 the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, England, for securing the 

 determination of the plants from which the types were collected. 



Sericothrips occipitalis sp. nov. Female (macropterous) . — Length about 

 0.9 mm. General color pale brownish yellow, with numerous, clearly de- 

 fined, brown markings. 



Head widest across eyes, about 1.8 times as wide as long; color pale 

 brownish yellow, both above and below, with vertical region dark brown; 

 cheeks straight, nearly parallel, about half the length of eyes ; frontal 

 costa with V-shaped notch; occipital line represented only by a heavy 

 brown line behind ocelli; occiput prominently reticulate with fine, dark 

 lines, which are more indistinct and transverse near eyes ; ocellar area 

 very finely and evenly transversely striate. Eyes prominent, protruding, 

 about two thirds as long as head and nearly as wide as; their interval. 

 Ocelli of posterior pair rather widely separated, pigment red. Antennae 

 slender, about 3.5 times the length of head, of normal structure; segments 

 I and 2 nearly colorless; 3-5 pale gray, the apex of 4 and the apical half 

 of 5 slightly infuscate ; 6-8 concolorous with apex of 5 ; segment 6 with 

 two long, slender, pale sense-cones, one on the inner and one on the outer 

 surface, attached nearly their entire length, thus forming two longitudinal 

 pale lines ; segment 5 with one oblique similar structure on inner ventral 

 surface. 



Prothorax a little longer than head and about twice as wide as long, 

 lateral and posterior margins rounded, anterior margin very slightly and 

 roundly emarginate ; pronotum pale brownish yellow except for a large, 

 sellate, brown blotch which is margined with a darker brown line and 

 which occupies slightly more than the posterior half of the median ^two 

 thirds, this blotch arcuately emarginate in front and with the sides par- 

 allel; coxae brown, femora and tibiae yellowish, slightly infuscate laterally; 

 pronotum exceedingly finely and closely and rather obscurely transversely 



