4 L. E. MOUND 



H. Priesner of Linz were largely responsible for our present knowledge of European 

 Thysanoptera, and between them they also established a framework of classification 

 of the African and Oriental forms. Unfortunately Bagnall was prevented by his 

 business interests from spending as much time as he would have liked on entomology. 

 For many years he was unable to maintain in one place a systematically arranged 

 collection of either insects or literature, and as a result he never produced any 

 synthesis of his work. It was probably this lack of revisionary studies, combined 

 with the discord resulting from the disposal of his collection in 1932, that resulted in 

 his concentration on the green fields of the Collembola. 



Bagnall gave up serious work on the Thysanoptera at a time when the species 

 concept within the group was coming under increasing scrutiny (Priesner, 1934-1935 

 on Elaphrothrips ; Speyer, 1934 & 1935 on Thrips and Aptinothrips) . Later 

 studies on heterogonic growth in Elaphrothrips by both Hartwig and Hood, and the 

 studies on normal variation in species of Dendrothrips and Haplothrips by Faure, 

 and Chirothrips by zur Strassen were quite different in their basic approach. 

 Bagnall's main effort was directed towards finding differences between individual 

 insects, whereas the present day accent on population ecology and economically 

 important species directs the taxonomist's effort towards finding correlations bet- 

 ween different populations. Bagnall's own studies on Thrips and Odontothrips, as 

 well as on the Australian gall-forming Tubulifera, were based on the assumption that 

 these insects were in all cases extremely host-specific, and his studies on the larger 

 Phlaeothripidae were made without appreciating the extraordinary range of varia- 

 tion now known to exist in many species. 



In spite of the advances in knowledge of the Thysanoptera since 1935, many of 

 Bagnall's nominal species have never been re-examined since they were first 

 described. The emphasis placed on some characters has changed over the years and 

 as a result, this review includes 134 new specific and generic synonymies and 39 new 

 combinations. This involves nominal species described by authors other than 

 Bagnall where type material is in the British Museum (Natural History) or was 

 readily available to the present author from other sources. Of the forms described 

 by Bagnall, 66 generic and 383 specific names are accepted here, although this is 

 likely to be reduced by further studies even if some of the present author's new 

 synonymy has to be rejected. One of the major problems is the inferior state of 

 specimens on which some species are based. On more than one occasion a new 

 species appears to have been described solely because a previously described form 

 was not in a suitable state for comparison. Remounting of critical specimens and 

 examination with a modern phase-contrast microscope cannot always resolve the 

 difficulties. Sometimes Bagnall did not appreciate that he was describing artefacts. 

 Thus he describes a species as short and fat when the specimen is merely contracted 

 due to dehydration before death. The exposed dorsal surface of the tube in such 

 contracted specimens of the Phaleothripidae is compared with the full ventral length 

 of the tube of expanded specimens, giving very different tube length/head length 

 ratios. 



Bagnall described his species in over 120 separate publications, and the present 



