An official website of the United States government.

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

National Invasive Species Information Center
U.S. Department of Agriculture
  1. Home
  2. Terrestrial Invasives
  3. Terrestrial Invertebrates
  4. Pink Hibiscus Mealybug

Pink Hibiscus Mealybug

Scientific Name

Maconellicoccus hirsutus (Green, 1908) (ITIS; name is valid but unverified)

Common Name

Pink hibiscus mealybug, pink mealybug, hirsutus mealybug

Native To

Asia (Roltsch et al. 2006)

Date of U.S. Introduction

1984 in Hawaii; 1999 in California (Roltsch et al. 2006); 2002 in Florida (Hoy et al. 2003)

Means of Introduction

Unknown; possibly with imported cargo or passenger luggage (Sagarra and Peterkin 1999)

Impact

Destroys crops and ornamental plants (Hoy et al. 2003)

Pink Hibiscus Mealybug

Female Pink Hibiscus Mealybug, Female

Credit

David Hall USDA, Agricultural Research Service

Source
USDA. ARS. Image Gallery.

Find more images

Distribution / Maps / Survey Status

  • Alien Forest Pest Explorer (AFPE)

    • USDA. FS. Northern Research Station.

    • The Alien Forest Pest Explorer (AFPE) is an interactive web tool which provides detailed spatial data describing pest distributions and host inventory estimates for damaging, non-indigenous forest insect and disease pathogens currently established in the U.S. The database is maintained as a joint effort of Purdue University, the U.S. Forest Service Northern Research Station, and the U.S. Forest Service Forest Health Protection.

  • Pest Tracker - Survey Status of Hibiscus (Pink) Mealybug

    • USDA. APHIS. Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey. National Agricultural Pest Information System.

Videos

All Resources

View and Filter All Pink Hibiscus Mealybug Resources

Selected Resources

The section below contains highly relevant resources for this species, organized by source.

Partnership
State and Local Government
Academic

  • EDIS - Pink Hibiscus Mealybug

    • University of Florida. Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension.

    • Electronic Data Information Source Publication #ENY029

Citations