Scale Insects, edition 2, a tool for the identification of potential pest scales at U.S.A. ports-of-entry (Hemiptera, Sternorrhyncha, Coccoidea)

Scale insects cause billions of dollars in damage to U.S. crops and in control costs annually and nearly all damaging scale pests are species that were inadvertently introduced. In order help federal and state agencies in the identification of scale insects of concern to the U.S.A. ports-of-entry, we built an online, interactive tool for their identification (freely accessible on http://idtools.org/id/scales/index.php). A total of 194 species, corresponding to interceptions by the United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service-Plant Protection and Quarantine (USDA-APHIS), between 1995 and 2013, are included. Full lists of terminal taxa included in the keys (of which there are four), a list of features used in them, and a discussion of the structure of the tool are featured. We also briefly discuss the advantages of interactive keys for the identification of potential scale insect pests.