Durović, G., Spodek, M., & Ülgentürk, S. 2024 Investigations on the immature stages of some species of Eulecaniinae (Hemiptera: Coccomorpha: Coccidae). Zootaxa 5405(4): 451–494
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Notes: Important diagnostic characters are visible in the membranous dorsal derm before mating; in life, the dorsum of the young adult female often has patterns of different colors, and on different host plants the same species can have different color patterns. If for some reason this stage is missed, after mating important identification characteristics may no longer be visible due to the dorsum swelling and hardening over time to become more convex, harder and darker; this problem has resulted in many misidentifications and synonyms due to different researchers working on the same species at different ages from different hosts, describing it as two or more distinct species. In this paper, the nymphal stages of some species of Eulecaniinae collected from Ankara, Türkiye (belonging to the genera Eulecanium, Palaeolecanium, Physokermes and Rhodococcus) and of Eulecanium tiliae from Israel are described, and we provide keys for their identification. Additionally, the immature stages of P. hellenicus and S. prunastri, previously described by Kozár et al. (2012) and Durovic & Ülgentürk (2021) are also included in the keys.
