Ref ID : 2200
Marshall Laird; Intestinal Flagellates from Some New Zealand Insects. Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand 84(2):297-308, 1956
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Fifty larvae of Pericoptus truncatus Fabr. (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae), 10 larvae of Odontria zealandica White (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae), 20 adults of Platyzosteria novae-zealandiae Brunn. (Orthoptera, Blattidae) and 10 adults of Hemideina thoracica (White) (Orthoptera, Tettigoniidae) were collected in various localities in and about Wellington during the summer of 1950-51. On examination for intestinal Protozoa all these insects proved to be infected with Monocercomonoides melolonthae (Grassi, 1879). Four of the O. zealandica larvae harboured Retortamonas phyllophagae (Travis and Becker, 1931), while Polymastix melolonthae (Grassi, 1879) was recorded from all the larvae of O. zealandica and from all but two of those of P. truncatus. Thirty-nine of the Pericoptus larvae were positive of a retortamonad for which the name of Retortamonas pericopti n. sp. is proposed.