​Frankliniella occidentalis (western flower thrips=WFT) and Thrips tabaci (onion thrips=OT) are 18 insect species that greatly impact horticultural crops through direct damage and their efficient 19 vectoring of tomato spotted wilt virus and iris yellow spot virus. In this study we collected thrips of 20 these species from 12 field populations in various regions in Italy. We also included one field 21 population of Neohydatothrips variabilis (soybean thrips=ST) from the U.S.A. Total RNAseq from 22 high-throughput sequencing (HTS) was used to assemble the virome and then we assigned putative 23 viral contigs to each thrips sample by qRT-PCR. Excluding plant and fungal viruses, we were able to 24 identify 61 viral segments, corresponding to 41 viruses: 14 were assigned to WFT, 17 to OT, one from 25 ST and 9 viruses could not be assigned to any species based on our stringent criteria. All these viruses 26 are putative representative of new species (with only the exception of a sobemo-like virus that is 27 100% identical to a virus recently characterized in ST) and some belong to new higher-ranking taxa. 28 These additions to the viral phylogeny suggest previously undescribed evolutionary niches. Most of the Baltimore's classes of RNA viruses were present (positive- and minus- strand and dsRNA 30 viruses), but only one DNA virus was identified in our collection. Repeated sampling in a subset of 31 locations in 2019 and 2020 and further virus characterization in a subset of four thrips populations 32 maintained in laboratory allowed us to provide evidence of a locally persistent thrips core virome that 33 characterizes each population.​