A new gall-producing species of Geoica Hart, 1894 (Hemiptera: Aphididae Eriosomatinae) from Israel

Geoica inbari sp. nov., living on Pistacia palaestina Boiss. (Anacardiaceae), is described based on apterous fundatrigeniae, fall migrants, embryos of apterous exules within fall migrants (fundatrispuriae) and the first instar larva of an apterous exule borne by a fall migrant, collected in the Mount Hermon area of Northern Israel. The new species differs from all other known Geoica species in its mitochondrial DNA, and from those known from Pistacia by the shape of the galls.

It makes ‘coral’-shaped galls, while all congeners produce spherical galls. The new species is a member of the Geoica utricularia group and morphologically resembles Geoica wertheimae Brown & Blackman, 1994.