Icerya

Icerya is a genus of scale insects in the family Monophlebidae. It is named after physician-naturalist Dr. Edmond Icery of British Mauritius.^[1]

Hermaphroditism

Hermaphroditism is extremely rare in the insect world despite the comparatively common nature of this condition in the crustaceans. Several species of Icerya, including the pestiferous cottony-cushion scale, I. purchasi, are known to be hermaphrodites that reproduce by self-fertilising. Occasionally males are produced from unfertilised eggs, but generally individuals are monoecious with a female-like nature but possessing an ovotestis (a part-testis, part-ovary organ) and sperm is transmitted ovarially from the female to her young.^[2] This hermaphroditic sexual self-sufficiency, where a single individual can populate new territory, has contributed to the invasive spread of the cottony-cushion scale insect away from its native Australia.^[3]

List of species

• Icerya aegyptiaca (Douglas 1890).
• Icerya albolutea Cockerell 1898.
• Icerya bimaculata De Lotto 1959.
• Icerya brachystegiae Hall 1940.
• Icerya brasiliensis Hempel 1920.
• Icerya callitri (Froggatt 1921).
• Icerya chilensis Hempel 1920.
• Icerya colimensis Cockerell 1902.
• Icerya flava Hempel 1920.
• Icerya flocculosa Hempel 1932.
• Icerya formicarum Newstead 1897.
• Icerya genistae Hempel 1912.
• Icerya hanoiensis Jashenko & Danzig 1992.
• Icerya imperatae Rao 1951.
• Icerya insulans Hempel 1923.
• Icerya koebelei Maskell 1892.
• Icerya leuderwaldti Hempel 1918.
• Icerya littoralis mimosae Cockerell 1902.
• Icerya littoralis tonilensis Cockerell 1902.
• Icerya littoralis Cockerell 1898.
• Icerya longisetosa Newstead 1911.
• Icerya maxima Newstead 1915.
• Icerya maynei Vayssiere 1926.
• Icerya menoni Rao 1951.
• Icerya minima Morrison 1919.
• Icerya minor Green 1908.
• Icerya montserratensis Riley & Howard 1890.
• Icerya morrisoni Rao 1951.
• Icerya nigroareolata Newstead 1917.
• Icerya palmeri Riley & Howard 1890.
• Icerya paulista Hempel 1920.
• Icerya pilosa Green 1896.
• Icerya pulchra (Leonardi 1907).
• Icerya purchasi citriperda Hempel 1920.
• Icerya purchasi crawii Cockerell 1897.
• Icerya purchasi maskelli Cockerell 1897.
• Icerya purchasi Maskell 1878 - cottony cushion scale
• Icerya rileyi Cockerell 1896.
• Icerya schoutedeni Vayssiere 1926.
• Icerya schrottkyi Hempel 1900.
• Icerya seychellarum (type) (Westwood 1855).
• Icerya seychellarum cristata Newstead 1909.
• Icerya similis Morrison 1923.
• Icerya splendida Lindinger 1913.
• Icerya subandina Leonardi 1911.
• Icerya sulfurea pattersoni Newstead 1917.
• Icerya sulfurea Lindinger 1913.
• Icerya sumatrana Rao 1951.
• Icerya taunayi Hempel 1920.
• Icerya travancorensis Rao 1951.
• Icerya tremae Vayssiere 1926.
• Icerya zeteki Cockerell 1914.
• Icerya zimmermani Green 1932.

References