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340 COLLEGE ENTOMOLOGY
VI. Superfamily COCCOIDEA 1 Handlirsch 1908
(Coc-coid'de-a, from the Greek KOKKOS, a grain or seed; because some of the
first known forms, such as the cochineal, were thought to be seeds rather
than insects.) Scale Insects, Coccids, Mealybugs, Lac Insects, etc.
Minute to small and often inconspicuous insects which are among the most
highly specialized of all HEMIPTERA and the most heterogenous of all insects.
It was years before the early students of natural history recognized certain
coccids as living animals, and it is recorded that a lawsuit was necessary in
Amsterdam to decide that cochineal was an insect rather than a seed. In view
of the great variation among the different families it is impossible to give more
than the barest facts which might be representative of the whole group.
Though the adults of most species are minute to small, varying from 0.5-2
mm. in circumference or length, the females of the large Australian Apiomorpha
duplex Schrader attain a length of 1 Y2 in. and inhabit a ribbed, elongated gall on
eucalyptus up to 3 in. in length (Tillyard, 1926) and the giant Leptococcus maximus
Saunders of South Africa is somewhat circular and up to 1 in. in diameter.
The bodies that are naked are usually heavily chitinized exteriorly while the
large majority of species, which are protected by wax, secreted in a great
variety of consistencies, or are covered by a tough scale or shell, have, as a
rule, a soft and delicate exoskeleton. The male has well-defined body regions,
but the female appears as a poorly organized mass of inert living material.
Although the members of many families are able to move more or less freely
though slowly throughout life, others, when mature, are capable of very little
or no movement. The first born, however, are all active and energetic. In
fact, it is almost impossible to conceive how so much action and endurance
can be incorporated into a living object so small and fragile. These wanderers
keep on the move and can travel long distances in search of food over a period
of several days. But after the first molt certain species, particularly in the
family DIASPIDIDJE, shed with the skin their antennre, legs, and anal
spines so characteristic of young coccids and become fixed for life, protected
beneath and above by a waxy-chitinous shell and supplied with the juices
extracted from the plant to which they are attached.
In general the females may be fUrther characterized by having the body
distinctly segmented or all of the segments fused together; eyes poorly developed
and arranged in groups of simple lenses or ocellanre; antennre well
developed and from one" to nine-segmented or atrophied; mouth parts with
rostrum inconspicuous, one- to two-segmented and the stylets usually very
long and coiled in the body; legs normal, atrophied, or absent (certain rare
species retain only the fore or the hind pair); claws, orie pair, simple or with
denticle, with or without digitu1es; with two pairs of thoracic spiracles and
without or with two, three, seven, or up to eight pairs on the abdomen; poste-
I FaU(!n 1814 established the group under the name COCCI DES. Leach 1815 also used this
name, and Stephens 1819 applied the family name COcCIDlE in the same all-inclusive way.
This was generally accepted until Handlirsch 1903 established the superfamily COcCOIDEA
and elevated certain of the subfamilies to family rank, a practice which still continues. '