Thrips attacking young banana leaves

These thrips were found damaging leaves of young banana plants by Dr. George Wall and Ric Lizama. Initial, mild damage looked like it was from a leaf mining insect. But this rapidly progressed to leaf silvering. Thrips were about 1.7 mm in length. Specimens were sent to Dr. Gillian Watson, CDFA, and Dr. Laurence Mound, CSIRO for identification.  

Dr. Mound determined that the thrips are Dinurothrips hookeri Hood (Thysanoptera): "This is known widely around the Caribbean, between Florida and Brazil, but yours seems to be the first record from elsewhere (apart from one from “Malaya” in my own book about the thrips of South America – and I do not know the basis for that although it might be in the Museum in London)."

"Leaf-feeding, like its many relatives in the “greenhouse thrips” group, it has been taken on many different plants – including tomato leaves as well as various Asteraceae, plus sweet potato
and eggplant. All specimens were female."

Label Data:

4f0f8f30f053d
Mangilao, Guam
13.449655°N 144.800212°E
ex banana leaf; 95% ETOH
coll. A. Moore 13 JAN 2012

4f0f8f310b64f
Mangilao, Guam
13.449655°N 144.800212°E
ex banana leaf; 70% ETOH
coll. A. Moore 13 JAN 2012

4f0f8f310be36
Mangilao, Guam
13.449655°N 144.800212°E
ex banana leaf; 70% ETOH
coll. A. Moore 13 JAN 2012

The first 2 samples were sent to Dr. Gillian Watson, CDFA for identification; the remaining sample was retained in the UOG insect collection.

An additional sample was sent to Dr. Laurence Mound, CSIRO:

4f17998d7de2f
Mangilao, Guam
13.449655°N 144.800212°E
ex banana leaf; 95% ETOH
coll. A. Moore 17 JAN 2012