THRIP BIOLOGY

The Eusocial Thrips

Thrips, the insect order Thysanoptera, seem like an unlikely candidate for eusociality. Best known for their plant-feeding habits, which make some species pests, particularly in greenhouses, thrips superficially have simple lifestyles with no particular incentive (or opportunity) to divide labor within families.

Like the aphids, thrips display one characteristic which pre-adapts them for eusociality; in some species a mother and her offspring live together in a gall, a structure produced by a host-plant in response to plant hormones produced by the thrips. The gall has an entrance-hole, and it is only logical to predict that some thrips might specialize in ***