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

description: Family ASTEROLECANIIDAE Cockerell
The family Asterolecaniidae (pit scales) contains about 247 species in 25 genera worldwide (García Morales et al. 2016). The pit scales known from Iran include five genera and seven species.
Appearance in life: Members of the Asterolecaniidae are relatively diverse, but a typical adult female pit scale usually lives in a depression or pit in the host’s surface and secretes a dorsal translucent waxy test whose margins are attached tightly to the substrate except for a small section at the rear, where crawlers may escape. The test (usually round / oval / ellipsoidal / oblong or elongate-oblong) is often yellow or green and frequently has a fringe of pale filaments around the margin. The saclike body of the insect lacks visible segmentation.
Diagnostic characters: The main diagnostic characters of the Asterolecaniidae are the absence of legs, and the presence of: sessile 8-shaped pores (Fig. 1A) that form a line or band around the body margin; antennae (Fig. 1B) reduced to unsegmented tubercles each bearing a few setae; stigmatic furrows (Fig. 1C) often present between each spiracle and body margin, each containing a row of quinquelocular disc-pores, the posterior furrows never branched; dorsal tubular ducts (Fig. 1D) each with a small indentation part-way along its length and a much enlarged, truncate inner end; a simplified anal opening (Fig. 1F), rarely with 2 rows of pores; anal area often with a lateral sclerotized bar and arched plate; and a pair of dorsal tubes (Fig. 1E) only present in genera feeding on bamboos.
KEY TO GENERA OF ASTEROLECANIIDAE IN IRAN, based on slide-mounted adult females.
1(0) Anal opening with 0‒2 setae. Posterior end of body without notch.............................................. 2
- Anal opening with 4 or 6 setae. Posterior end of body with a notch.............................................. 3
2(1) Margin of anal opening with 2 setae..................................................... Asterodiaspis Signoret
- Margin of anal opening without setae.................................................. Palmaspis Bodenheimer
3(1) A pair of submedian dorsal tubes present near posterior end of abdomen. On bamboo hosts only.... Bambusaspis Cockerell
- A pair of submedian dorsal tubes absent from near posterior end of abdomen. Hosts various, including bamboos......... 4
4(3) Dorsal 8-shaped pores distributed in groups in median, submedian and submarginal areas..................................................................................................... Asterolecanium Targioni Tozzetti
- Dorsal 8-shaped pores scattered..................................................... Russellaspis Bodenheimer
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 page 21, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5542.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/14385386