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Limothrips angulicornis Jablonowski, 1894 is newly recorded for the fauna of China. The genus Limothrips Haliday, 1836 (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) now includes three species in China. In addition, two previously recorded Limothrips species were also distributed in Palaearctic region of China, and there is no record in south and east of China, Oriental region. A key is provided to identifying of Chinese species of the genus Limothrips.

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Haplothripsverbasci (Osborn) is recorded from Iran for the first time. The specimens of this species were collected on flowers of Verbascum thapsus (Scrophulariaceae) from Hamedan Province, western Iran.    

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Taeniothrips inconsequens (Uzel) of the subfamily Thripinae (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) collected on flowers from Doha is reported in this paper, which represents the first record of both the genus and the species from Qatar. Morphological characters and geographical distribution of the newly recorded thrips are given.  

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The genus Taeniothrips Amyot & Serville is belonging in the subfamily Thripinae with only one species in Iran. Here, the second species, T. eucharii (Whetzel) is newly recorded from the country. Male and female specimens of this species have been collected on the flowers of Ixiolirion tataricum (Amaryllidaceae) from Ilam province (west of Iran).

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This study was done during 2012 to 2014 to determine the species composition of thrips on fruit trees and weeds of orchards in three counties of Qazvin Province (i.e. Buin-Zahra, Takestan and Qazvin). For each county 14 orchards were sampled. In each orchard, 10 trees and from each tree four shoots along with their leaves, flowers and fruits were selected as a sample unit. Diversity was calculated by Shannon-Wiener Index and evenness by Pielou evenness index. Species richness was estimated using the first-order jackknife richness estimator. One-way ANOVA was used to test whether there exists significant variation in species diversity, evenness and richness along the three counties. Of the 4,489 adult collected specimens from three locations, 27 species belonging to 13 genera were identified. The highest number of thrips was collected on plants of family Rosaceae, followed by Vitaceae and Moraceae, respectively. The number of collected species in Qazvin (18) and Buin-Zahra (17) counties were more than Takestan (13) county. Similar trend was observed for the total number of adult specimens collected in the three counties as more specimens were found in Qazvin and Buin-Zahra than Takestan. Results of this study showed that Thrips tabaci L. was found on all species of fruit trees and weeds. There were no significant differences among the three counties in terms of both diversity (P = 0.41) and evenness (P = 0.45). Across the counties, thrips estimated richness was higher in Qazvin county compared to Buin-Zahra and Takestan counties. Among the trees in Buin-Zahra and Takestan counties, grape had the highest thrips diversity. The highest value of diversity for Qazvin county was recorded for apricot. The polyphagous species T. tabaci was dominant in all three counties, followed by Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) (in Qazvin county), Frankliniella intonsa (Trybom) (in Buin-Zahra county) and Frankliniella tenuicornis (Uzel) (in Takestan county).

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The genus Thrips Linnaeus (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) with 37 species, is the largest genus in Thripinae from Iran. However, Thrips coloratus Schmutz was excluded from Iranian thrips because of its misidentification. Here, this species is recorded from Iran for the first time based on two specimens collected on the flowers of clover (Fabaceae) from Ilam province.

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Quick and authentic identification of exotic and potentially invasive taxa with capability of causing high economic losses or detriments is essential prerequisite for effective plant quarantine and biological control initiatives. The order Thysanoptera includes several agricultural pest species that, not only because of their minute size but also due to their cryptic behavior, incline to undetected transport through international trade of plants. Identification of thrips, particularly at species level, is pretty demanding and requires expertise in knowledge about Thysanoptera. Moreover, in most cases, identification of larval Thysanoptera to species is impossible without presence of adults. Hence, there is a great desire for a facile, accurate, and highly reliable technique for thrips identification. The present study describes species-specific primers for four pest thrips species, and the use of a multiplex PCR assay to detect and to distinguish between the four target species. Five primers were used to simultaneously amplify a specific region of the mitochondrial DNA and produce species-specific fragments. Results indicated that the primers were capable of detecting these four species and amplifying uniquely sized, species-specific PCR products. Furthermore, using a multiplex PCR assay, the primers maintained specificity and sensitivity, and allowed detection of each of the four species in a single reaction. The stringency of the method was tested using specimens of different developmental stages and consistent results were obtained for all of the examined samples. This method is simple enough to be implemented by non-experts and also can be extended to any organism for which quick and reliable identification is needed.