Thrips (Order Thysanoptera)
This week’s Crawly is one which is easy to overlook, but quite the interesting insect indeed! Moreover, its name is just flat-out fun to say; meet the thrips (Order Thysanoptera).
“Thrips” is both singular & plural, so you might see one thrips or a passel of thrips! Any and all thrips are “their own thing” in taxonomy terms. They are in their own order and not really closely related to any other critters.
At a glance, you might miss a thrips altogether, as they are quite small – most are 1 – 2mm (back to metrics because that’s 3/64 – 1/12 of an inch). You could say they are “flea-sized” though fleas can get larger than thrips.
What’s in a name? The standout feature of thrips (if you looked with a macro lens, or magnifying glass) are their fringed wings. Their name comes from the Greek words for “fringed” and “wings”!
While we do know quite a bit about thrips, there is a lot left to learn. For example, there are 700 described species of thrips in North America and almost 200 species no one has had time to describe yet.
Worldwide there are about 6,230 species of thrips! You can really fly under the radar when you are teeny, tiny.
Here we’ll pause to say that some thrips are considered pests because they do feed on plant parts. However, they’re only a real concern for crop growers as they can cause plant deformities or scarring and in some cases can spread diseases among plants.
However, some thrips are beneficial, dining on other small arthropods such as mites. Some thrips prefer fungi to green plant matter so they are excellent at breaking down leaf litter and improving soils.
With over 700 species of thrips, you get a variety of diets and levels of benefit and annoyingness.
Generally thrips are fairly ephemeral. You can see in the photo a small Family Asteraceae flower in my yard was the location of one big thrips house party. A day or so later I went back to try and get more photos, and my exhaustive search of 20+ golden flower heads yielded zero thrips. Quite the “now you see ‘em, now you don’t!” trick they pulled.
Truly, thrips just gotta do their own thing. Not only do they have their own order, but they have their own lifecycle too. Typically winged insects go from larval (caterpillar) to pupal (chrysalis) to adult.
Thrips skip the middle, going straight from larva to adult. I mean, who wouldn’t want to skip those awkward teen years?
But wait, there’s more! While many thrips have lovely, feathery wings many thrips are wingless as adults. Why?
Honestly, we don’t know just yet. Maybe when researchers find the time to sort out and describe those 200 not-yet-described species we’ll learn more.
That’s part of the fun of all our crawlies; there’s always more to be discovered!
We’re not done with thrips yet though! There are a few more cool things we do know. Thrips can reproduce asexually which is how one small flower head can have a whole lot of thrips on it.
In some areas (especially in the United Kingdom) they are called “thunder flies” because they fly when it thunders, sometimes forming huge clouds which can be annoying. When it comes to mammals, thrips are harmless: no bite, no sting and not poisonous.
Speaking of biting: thrips are the only insects with asymmetrical mouth parts as adults. Young thrips have two mandibles (bitey mouth parts) but when they reach adulthood, they lose their right mandible and are left as “lefties.”
We could go on, but we’ll leave you with this final fun fact: Thrips can conquer any terrain because they have teeny-weenie suction cups on their feet which they can turn inside-out when not walking on slick surfaces.
Seriously! Miniscule, feathery wings, or maybe wingless, skip “puberty,” solo reproduction, one mandible, suction cup feet – Nature really reached around in her grab bag of “cool and weird” critter options when creating thrips.
