20^ 



REMARKS ON COCCIDiE FROM UGANDA. 



By E. ERNEST GREEN, 



GovERjfMENT Entoj\[ol()gist, Peeideniya, Ceylon. 



In Prof. Newstead's paper " On Scale Insects from the Uganda Protec- 

 torate ^'' (Bull. Entom. Res. Vol. I. pt. 1) is a description and fioure of the 

 male larva of Stirtococciis dimorphiis.. This remarkable larva is said to have 

 no mouth parts. It is also unique in differino- completely in form and 

 structure from that of the female larva of the same species. Its anal 

 aperture is not only in a different position, but of a different character — 

 having a setiferous ring similar to that of the DACTYLOPiiNiE. Stictococcus 

 is (rightly or wrongly) placed in the subfamily Lecaniin^. 



This strongly-marked sexual dimorphism in a larval Coccid is of itself 

 unprecedented ; but the total absence of buccal organs is astounding. One 

 naturally asks — how does this insect obtain the nourishment thnt must be 

 necessary for further growth and the completion of its development ? I can 

 conceive of only one possible explanation of such a condition, and that a 

 somewhat improbable one : — namely that the species is parthenogenetic and 

 that, in addition to functionally fertile female progeny, a certain number of 

 abortive male larvse are produced. 



Prof. Newstead does not state wdiether both of these larval forms were 

 taken from the marsupium of a single female,* nor wdiether any later stages 

 of the male insect have been observed. 



With regard, to Prof. Newstead^s determination of Aspidioh(s lataniwj Sign., 

 in this same paper, I think that he must have overlooked tlie facts recorded 

 in the Ent. Mo. Mag. xxxv. p. 181 (1899), in which, from examination of 

 Signoret's actual type material (kindly lent by the Vienna Museum), 

 1 showed that the species so closely resembling A. destructor had been 

 wrongly determined as latania?, and that the true latanice was apparently 

 identical with A, cydonice of Comstock. The insect that I had — in the first 

 part of my " Coccidse of Ceylon ^^ — confounded with latanice reverts to its 

 earlier name of transparens, Green (see Journ. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 

 vol. xiii. No. 1, p. 69, 1899). Whether cydonue is or is not acknowledged 

 to be synonymous with latanice of Signoret, the species here recorded by 

 Prof. Newstead as latanice should stand as transjiarens, Green. 



* [Larvae of both sexes were taken from the marsupium of a single female. — R. N.] 

 BULL. ENT. RES. VOL. I. PART 3, OCTOBER I9IO. |l* 



