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How to Manage Pests:
Pest Management and Identification
Sixspotted thrips
Scientific name: Scolothrips sexmaculatus
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Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Thysanoptera
Family: Thripidae
Common prey: Predaceous on phytophagous mites
Commercially available: No
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DESCRIPTION
Thrips are tiny, 2-3 mm (less than 1/8 inch) in
length, slender insects with long fringes on the margins of their wings.
Thrips undergo incomplete metamorphosis, have multiple generations
per year, and can be phytophagous or predaceous. Sixspotted thrips
adults can be distinguished from other species by the three dark spots
on each wing cover of the mostly pale-yellow adult. Nymphs are translucent
white to yellow and difficult to discern from other thrips species.
Adults and larvae are entirely predaceous, feeding most commonly on
mites such as the European red mite, cyclamen mite, and Tetranychus spp.
spider mites. Sixspotted thrips can rapidly reduce high mite populations,
but often don't become numerous until after mites have become abundant
and damaging.
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