Pulvinaria regalis
species of insect
Pulvinaria regalis is a species of scale insect in the family Coccidae. Although it is commonly known as the horse chestnut scale, it affects other trees besides horse chestnuts as well as many species of woody shrubs. Adults are normally all female and produce eggs by parthenogenesis. The insects are thought to have originated in Asia but arrived in Europe in the second half of the twentieth century.
Host species
Pulvinaria regalis is known to be hosted by 65 species of plant from 25 families. The main species of tree which act as hosts for this scale insect are horse chestnut, sycamore, maple, lime, elm, magnolia, bay and dogwood.
Distribution and habitat
Pulvinaria regalis is thought to be native to Asia. It was first detected in Europe in the 1960s when it became established in London, it arrived in Paris by 1968 and had spread to Germany by 1989, where it has since been detected in many cities. The female insects have no wings and are therefore unable to fly, and their means of transportation is thought to be either with tree prunings, or on nursery stock. The nymphs at their crawler stage may be transported by wind and it is possible that they, or the eggs, are sometimes carried on the legs of birds.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pulvinaria regalis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.