Pear psyllids belong to the most serious pests of pear. They damage pear trees by excessive removal of phloem sap, by soiling the fruits with honeydew which, in turn, provides a substrate for sooty mold, and by transmission of Candidatus Phytoplasma, the causal agents of the pear decline disease. The morphological similarity, the presence of seasonal dimorphism that affect adult colour, size and wing characters, and uncritical use of species names, led much confusion in the taxonomy of pear psyllid species. As a result, pear psyllids have been frequently misidentified. Here we analysed DNA barcodes of eleven pear psyllid species from eastern Asia, Europe and Iran using four mitochondrial gene fragments. The efficiency of identification was notably high and considerable barcoding gaps were observed in all markers. Our results confirm the synonymies of the seasonal forms. Previous misidentifications are also corrected. There is no evidence for the presence of European pear psyllid species in East Asia.

• Geonho Cho(Insect Biosystematics Laboratory, Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Science, Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Seoul National University, Korea)
• Igor Malenovský(Department of Botanyand Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic)
• Daniel Burckhardt(Naturhistorisches Museum, Augustinergasse 2, Basel, Switzerland)
• Hiromitsu Inoue(Institute of Fruit Tree and Tea Science, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), Akitsu, Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima, Japan)
• Seunghwan Lee(Insect Biosystematics Laboratory, Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Science, Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Seoul National University, Korea)