Thrips facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Thrips Temporal range: Permian - Recent
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Subclass:	Pterygota
Superorder:	Exopterygota
Order:	Thysanoptera

Thrips are an order of insects, the Thysanoptera. They are tiny, slender insects with fringed wings.

Other common names for them are thunderflies, thunderbugs, storm flies, thunderblights, and corn lice. The scientific name for the order Thysanoptera comes from the Greek thysanos (fringe) and pteron (wing).

Thrips feed on a large variety of plants and animals by puncturing them and sucking up the contents. Thrips species are pests if they feed on plants with commercial value.

Thrips found in the British Isles are tiny insects, just 1-2mm long, but in other parts of the world they can be up to 14 mm. They have two pairs of narrow, fringed wings, although some are wingless. More than 6,000 species of thrips are known around the world, with over 300 of these in Europe and about 150 native to Britain.

Images for kids

• 

  A typical thrips: the feathery wings are unsuitable for the leading edge vortex flight of most other insects, but support clap and fling flight.

• 

  The Australian rainforest shrub Myrsine (Rapanea) howittiana is pollinated by Thrips setipennis.

• 

  Coffee tree leaves rolled up by Hoplandrothrips (Phlaeothripidae) damage

• 

  Eusocial colonies of Kladothrips cause and live in galls on Acacia trees.

• 

  Thrips nymph.Scale bar is 0.5 mm

• 

  A tomato infected with the thrips-borne Tospovirus, tomato spotted wilt virus

See also

In Spanish: Tisanópteros para niños