Appendiseta Richards

This genus holds one known species, A. robiniae. This was one of the first aphid groups that I learned to identify as a college student in the late 1980s.  I had been tasked to identify aphids landing on potato crops in the Hermiston area of Oregon, and the first year of this work was a good year for Appendiseta in that area.   It landed in my yellow buckets by the hundreds, and so I was motivated to find it in nature.  Didn’t take me long to find it living on black locust in the area.

Appendiseta robiniae (Gillette)

This is the single species of the genus Appendiseta, and is almost everywhere I have seen its host, Robinia, grow, including near a touristy castle in the Czech Republic (where it is an exotic species). This aphid is native to North America, where it feeds on Robinia pseudoacacia and R. neomexicana. This aphid is like an old friend — I have been collecting and seeing this aphid since my earliest days of aphid hunting in the 1980s.

Appendiseta robiniae alate vivipara.

Appendiseta robiniae male.

Appendiseta robiniae ovipara.