Latin abbreviations and words have been used in the zoological literature since Linnaeus (1758), although some are now rare but were in common usage in the 18th and 19th centuries. The following list of Latin abbreviations and words is prepared to help students of scale insects who are not acquainted with Latin and those who may be just beginning to learn about the study of scale insects with i...

The armored scales (Family Diaspididae) constitute one of the most successful groups of plant-parasitic arthropods and include some of the most damaging and refractory pests of perennial crops and ornamentals. The Diaspididae is the largest and most specialized of the dozen or so currently recognized families which compose the superfamily Coccoidea. A recent world catalog ( 19) lists 338 valid ...

Past works on scale insects (Hemiptera: Coccoidea) from the Maltese Archipelago are reviewed. Based on the literature and contemporary collections, a total of 93 species of scale insects belonging to 12 scale insect families are here reported (Aclerdidae 1 species; Asterolecaniidae 4; Coccidae 17; Diaspididae 46; Eriococcidae 5; Kermesidae 1; Margarodidae 1; Micrococcidae 1; Monophlebidae 2; Ps...

There is an extraordinary diversity in genetic systems across species, but this variation remains poorly understood. In part, this is because the mechanisms responsible for transitions between systems are often unknown. A recent hypothesis has suggested that conflict between hosts and endosymbiotic microorganisms over transmission could drive the transition from diplodiploidy to systems with ma...