Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The article discusses biological and chemical data on pigments of Coccinea and related insect groups, as well as information on dyes obtained from these pigments. The main direct and indirect historical data on the use of coccid dyes by different ancient peoples, starting from the 15th century BCE, are given. For the first time, a complete taxonomic analysis of coccid pigmentation is carried out for all recent families of the world fauna. The first part of the paper considers the archaeococcid families (superfamily Orthezioidea): Margarodidae s.l., Ortheziidae, Phenacoleachiidae, and Xenococcidae, accepted according to Danzig’s and Gavrilov-Zimin’s system (Danzig 1986; Gavrilov-Zimin 2018; Gavrilov-Zimin et al. 2021). Particular attention is paid to the genera and species of scale insects that are little known in the humanitarian and technological literature, but could have been involved in dyeing trades in previous historical periods. It is shown that the extreme confusion accompanying the descriptions of dye coccids in ancient, medieval and some subsequent literature is connected with the main dye species being replaced by other species (including those from other genera and families) available to the aboriginal people in a particular locality. The remaining scale insect families, combined in the superfamily Coccoidea (neococcids), will be considered in the second part of the paper.
Author: I.A. Gavrilov-Zimin
Institution: Zoological Institute
Language: English
Topic: Research on scale insects
Subfield: Insect Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
Funder: Russian Academy of Sciences
OpenAlex ID: W4414267387