Megacopta cribraria ( F.) 295
Airport, which has many international flights. This suggests that it was introduced by travelers or trading
goods arriving at that airport. Dobbs and Brodel (2004) reported that quarantine-significant organisms
arrived regularly at the Miami International Airport, being found on about 10% of flights. Because this
bug tends to move to overwintering sites, and the original infestation was close to a major airport, the
most likely scenario is that a fertile female entered a plane in cargo or luggage bound for the United
States and escaped upon arrival.
Although the North American record was the first report of the occurrence of a member of the family
Plataspidae in North, Central, or South America, another species, Coptosoma xanthogramma ( W h ite),
was found on legumes in Hawaii in 1965 (Beardsley and Fluker 1967). Froeschner (1984) reported find-
ing three specimens of Paracopta duodecimpunctata (Germar) (as Coptosoma duodecimpunctatum) in
the collection of the National Museum of Natural History with labels indicating Alaska as the collection
locality. The distribution of this species is India to the Malay Peninsula and its occurrence in Alaska
has not been confirmed and seems doubtful. Aiello et al. (2016) reported that a second plataspid species,
Brachyplatys vahlii (F.), was found in Panama in 2012 and is apparently established there (Aiello et al.
2016). They based their identification on gene sequences in GenBank, but Rédei (2016) stated that, based
on morphology, the species found in Panama was actually Brachyplatys subaeneus ( Westwood).
5.2 Taxonomy
Specimens from the initial collections in Georgia were identified as Megacopta cribraria based on morpho-
logical characters and this determination was confirmed by David A. Rider (contributor for Chapter 2)
and Thomas. J. Henry (personal communication). Voucher specimens from this initial collection were
deposited in the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, and the Florida State Collection
of Arthropods, Gainesville, FL. Jenkins et al. (2010) initially sequenced mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)
genes from three M. cribraria adults randomly chosen from 2009 collections used to identify the species
morphologically. The genetic sequence markers were specific to M. cribraria, and, thus, the protocol
for a one-to-one correlation between genetic sequence markers and morphological taxonomy (Eger et
al. 2010) was established as in other studies (Lee et al. 2005) (see Section 5.5, Population Genetics, for
further discussion).
Megacopta cribraria originally was described as Cimex cribrarius by Fabricius (1798) based on speci-
mens collected in India. It later was transferred to several genera until being assigned to Coptosoma
Laporte by Amyot and Serville (1843) where it remained for more than a century. Montandon (1896)
described a new species, Coptosoma punctatissimum, from Japan, indicating that it was close to
C. cribraria but was larger and generally darker in color. The following year, Montandon (1897) indi-
cated that he had seen specimens that were intermediate between the two species, but he did not formally
designate C. punctatissimum as a junior synonym of C. cribraria. Yang (1934) revised the Chinese
Plataspidae and considered C. punctatissimum to be a variety of C. cribraria, essentially synonymizing
the two species. He was followed by Davidová-Vilímová (2006) who considered the two species to be
conspecific. Hsiao and Ren (1977) described a new genus, Megacopta, designating C. cribraria as the
type species of the genus where it resides today.
Most authors outside of Japan have treated the two names (Megacopta cribraria and M. punctatis-
sima) as synonymous, but Japanese authors have continued to consider M. punctatissima as a species
distinct from M. cribraria (e.g., Ishihara 1950, Hasegawa 1965, Hibino and Ito 1983, Hirashima 1989,
Imura 2003, Himuro et al. 2006, and others). Hosokawa et al. (2007b) summarized the differences in the
two species, stating that M. cribraria is found in the southwestern islands of Japan, is primarily a kudzu
feeder, and rarely causes damage to agricultural crops. On the other hand, M. punctatissima occurs in
mainland Japan and is a pest of soybeans. However, the two species are able to interbreed and produce
viable offspring. Although there appear to be some differences in size and/or coloration between differ-
ent populations of M. cribraria across the original distribution of the species, the same range in size and
color is found in specimens from the southeastern United States. Examination of specimens from India,
China, Japan and the southeastern United States did not reveal any consistent differences in external
structure or in internal and external genitalia. Thus, there does not appear to be any morphological basis