Adult male doubtful; very minute and difficult to detect. Antennæ apparently short and tibiæ large.
Habitat—On Cordyline australis and C. indivisa, Phormium, Gahnia, Astelia, Eucalyptus, &c., throughout the islands; but the chief habitat seems to be C. australis (the common cabbage-tree), on which it is often very abundant.
This species may at first sight be mistaken for Fiorinia stricta, described below, which also infests Cordyline and Phormium; but, on inspection, it will be seen that the puparium of the Mytilaspis is much whiter, and the pellicles yellow, those of F. stricta being black. An examination of the second pellicles of the two species will, of course, at once distinguish them.
14. Mytilaspis drimydis, Maskell.
N.Z. Trans., Vol. XI., 1878, p. 196.
([Plate V.], Fig. 3.)
Female puparium elongated, often straight, sometimes curved; colour, dirty-white or brown; pellicles at one end; length, about 1/12in.
Male puparium similar, but smaller.
Adult female dull-red in colour, elongated, not very distinctly segmented. Abdomen ending in a number of small lobes, of which the four median are the largest; several fine hairs between the lobes; no groups of spinnerets, but a very great number of single ones, which are scattered on the segments as far up as the rostrum. Many of these protrude as short thick tubes with serrated or fringed extremities. On the cephalic segment are a few spiny hairs and two rudimentary antennæ.