Range
Native to Australia, has spread widely as a crop pest.
Food
Hosts on many different plants, though Citrus and Pittosporum are reportedly the most commonly affected plants in FL.
Remarks
The white fluted part of the insect is an egg sac that can contain up to 1000 eggs. The insect is hermaphroditic, producing sperm that can fertilize its own ova, but in an alternate reproductive strategy it can also make winged males that can fertilize the female part of other individuals.
There are some interesting stories relating to the introduction of this pest and its biological control. When it first appeared in the western US it was a major pest of Citrus crops. In CA, around 1889, it was an early success story for biological control by beneficial ladybird beetles (
Rodolia cardinalis). Full story at
Museums of Cape Town. The control was so successful that in 1893 a Florida nurseryman asked for some of the beneficials to be sent to FL, to test as a control for other scale insects. The cottony cushion scale was included in the shipment as food for the beetles, and thus accidentally introduced to FL citrus. Full story at
Florida Featured CreaturesInternet References
Classification from Museums of Capetown webpage. There seems to be some dispute over whether these are hemiptera, homoptera, or both, according to the several web references I checked. The same site also has detailed life cycle information for
Margarodidae 
