Morphological and molecular confirmation of Thrips palmi, karny 1925 (Thripidae) and Haplothrips tenuipennis bagnall, 1918 (Phlaeothripidae) of order thysanoptera in Muthalamada Mangoes of Kerala, India

Periodic incidence of sucking pests in Muthalamada mangoes, Palakkad, Kerala has caused severe setback to mango growers. Symptoms of damage include malformation of mango panicles and bronzing of mango fruits which resulted in the reduced marketability of the produce. A random survey was conducted in mango orchards of these regions during the flushing, flowering, and fruit setting stage of crop during September 2022 to May 2023. Collected thrips specimens were subjected to morphological identification done with permanent slide technique of taxonomic key characteristics. Because T. palmi Karny and Haplothrips tenuipennis Bagnall has close physical resemblance to other thrips species, we used the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase 1 (mtCO1) gene as a molecular marker. BLAST analysis of this sequence allowed us to identify the collected specimen as T. palmi and H. tenuipennis.