Here I want to draw attention to a remarkable form of chimerism found in armored scale insects.

In armored scale insects, bacteriomes have unique genetic and sexual properties.

For this reason these insects are commonly referred to as armored scale insects.

Aspidiotinae is a large subfamily of armored scale insects, with 193 genera.

Diaspidini is a tribe of armored scale insects.

Chionaspidina is a subtribe of armored scale insects established by Borchenius.

Rugaspidiotina is an obsolete subtribe of armored scale insects.

Furcaspidina is a subtribe of armored scale insects, traditionally regarded as part of the Aspidiotini.

This is because most armored scale insects have an unusual genetic system called embryonic paternal genome elimination (Herrick and Seger 1999).

Results of core projects in the International Biological Programme: aphids, spider mites, fruit flies, rice stem borers and armored scale insects. 50 pp. refs.

The Cyanophyllum Scale, Abgrallaspis cyanophylli (Signoret), is one of nine species of the Abgrallaspis genus of armored scale insects.

There are interesting parallels between, on the one hand, the chimerism seen in armored scale insects and, on the other hand, the eusociality (true sociality) seen in ants and honeybees.

Ultimately, we might learn something about the general principles of conflict and cooperation between maternal and embryonic tissues that govern these cases if we can understand the uniquely stable and intimate chimerism of armored scale insects.

In armored scale insects, a genetically distinct but ultimately sterile cell lineage (the bacteriome) provides nutrition to its potentially fertile "sibling" cell lineage (the rest of the scale insect)-though, of course, polar body-derived cells are "sibling" in a strange special sense.