Poliaspoides formosana (Takahashi)

The armored scale genus Poliaspoides MacGillivray contains four species, three of which are thus far recorded exclusively from various bamboo species (Poaceae) (Ulgenturk and Pellizzari 2013). The genus appears to be an Oriental and/or Australasian endemic, but P. formosana (Takahashi) now occurs in the Afrotropical region, including continental Africa (Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa) and the islands of Mauritius and Reunion (Miller et al. 2013a). In November 2011 and August 2012, specimens of P. formosana were collected from bamboo at a nursery in Charlotte County, and at a second nursery in January 2013 in Miami-Dade County, and confirmed by Dug Miller, Systematic Entomology Laboratoty (retired) as a NEW HEMISPHERE RECORD. Several of the Charlotte County samples were also infested with an undescribed species of armored scale in the genus Froggattiella MacGillivray, a small genus of five bamboo-infesting species that also has a primarily Oriental distribution (Aono 2009).