Ceroplastes rusci
Creators: name: Moghaddam, Masumeh
name: Watson, Gillian W.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Coccidae
Ceroplastes
Ceroplastes rusci

description: Ceroplastes rusci (Linnaeus)
(Fig. 16, Plates 2 C-1 and C-2, distribution map Fig. 89G)
Coccus rusci Linnaeus, 1758: 456. Ceroplastes rusci (Linnaeus); Signoret 1872a: 35.
Field characteristics: Live adult female body with a thick, broadly oval and quite hard wax test, marginal areas around body divided into a series of eight quadrate plates; test usually pale pink to almost white; ventral view with broad white strip of secretion between each spiracle and margin of test. Mature female smoothly globular, venter reddish brown, stigmatic clefts shallow but distinct; caudal process short and stout, extending dorso-posteriorly.
Microscopic diagnosis: Slide-mounted adult female body oval, convex, with shallow stigmatic clefts. Caudal process short and stout.
Dorsum. Derm membranous on young females, except for sclerotized caudal process. Derm with 1 central and 7 marginal clear areas. Setae each bluntly spinose. Pores of 2 types: (i) loculate bilocular microducts, easily most abundant; and (ii) simple microducts of 2 sizes: larger ducts abundant near margin, but present rather sparsely throughout; and smaller ducts, sparsely present within clear areas. Preopercular pores present in a transverse band, numbering 5–13 (10–20 in Iranian specimens). Anal plates each with 3 pairs of long setae dorsally and an unusually long apical seta. Anal ring with 8 setae.
Margin. Marginal setae strongly setose; each side with 1−8 setae present between anterior and posterior stigmatic areas; each anal lobe with 3 or 4 longer marginal setae. Stigmatic clefts shallow, each with a line of conical, bluntly pointed stigmatic setae, each slightly longer than broad; dorsal-most spinose setae in each cleft largest, other stigmatic setae becoming progressively smaller along margin.
Venter. Derm entirely membranous. Pregenital disc-pores each with 10 loculi, restricted to around anogenital fold, and across preceding segment; much less frequent on abdominal segment V, with 0–4 on segment IV and 0 or 1 on III; 1 or 2 occasionally found between antennal bases. Spiracular disc-pores each with 5 loculi, present in broad bands (each about 7 pores wide) between each spiracle and margin. Ventral tubular ducts each with a long, narrow inner ductule, often with an obvious terminal gland, present in a group of about 1–19 in cephalic region; frequency variable posteriorly on abdominal submargin, perhaps sometimes absent but some specimens with 1 or 2 mediolaterally on each side of all abdominal segments. Submarginal setae more than twice as frequent as widely spaced marginal setae. Antennae each with 6 segments, usually with 1 distinct pseudo-articulation in segment III. Legs well developed, each with a well-developed tibio-tarsal articulatory sclerosis; each claw with a distinct small denticle; claw digitules both broad and subequal to, or slightly shorter than, tarsal digitules.
Distribution: C eroplastes rusci is a cosmopolitan species of New World origin; in Iran, it is found in Hormozgan, Kohgilouyeh & Boyerahmad, Lorestan and Sistan & Balouchestan provinces (Moghaddam 2013).
Host-plants: The scale is highly polyphagous on mostly woody hosts. In Iran, it has been recorded on edible fig, Ficus carica (Moraceae) (Moghaddam 2013).
Economic importance: The species is a serious pest of F. carica in Fars and Lorestan provinces.
Natural enemies: A complex of natural enemies of C. rusci has been observed in Iran, including the parasitoid wasps Aprostocetus toddaliae (Risbec) and Diglyphus chabrias (Walker) (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) (Talebi et al. 2011).
description: Published as part of Moghaddam, Masumeh & Watson, Gillian W., 2024, The Scale Insects Of Iran (Hemiptera: Coccomorpha) Part 3 The Soft Scales (Coccidae) And Other Families, pp. 1-202 in Zootaxa 5542 (1) on pages 48-50, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5542.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/14385386