Carulaspis minima

Female scale covers slightly convex, circular to oval, white, and are approximately 1.5 mm in diameter and have a darker yellow center. The male scales are elongated, oval, with 1-3 ridges, and have more white coloration than the females. The minute cypress scale overwinters as a mature female found on host plant leaves or needles. By May in the Northeast, females will begin to lay up to 40 reddish-yellow eggs which will hatch approximately 2 weeks later. Yellowish crawlers (the mobile, immature stage) will move and find a new location to settle and begin to feed on the host plant. Like many scale or adelgid crawlers, they are capable of dispersing via the wind. Once settled in a suitable location on the host plant, they begin to feed. Female crawlers will go through 3 instars, and the males will go through 5. Males will eventually mature into tiny, winged individuals that fly to mate with the adult females. This happens in late summer or early fall. In the cooler parts of the insect's range, a single generation occurs per year. This might be the case in most locations, however some sources state that two generations per year are possible in California. A closely related species, Carulaspis juniperi, also known as the juniper scale, looks identical to the minute cypress scale in the field and is found on many of the same host plants. It is possible that the two could easily be confused for one another. (In fact, for many years scientists treated them as a single species.) The minute cypress scale may be slightly smaller than the juniper scale. This species may be more prevalent in the southern United States as it prefers a warmer climate, however specimens have been collected in the past from Massachusetts (Johnson and Lyon, 1991; Miller and Davidson, 2005).