Hypoaspis terrestris (Leonardi)

Joharchi, Omid & Halliday, Bruce, 2011, New species and new records of mites of the family Laelapidae (Acari: Mesostigmata) associated with Coleoptera in Iran, Zootaxa 2883, pp. 23-38 : 35

Hypoaspis terrestris (Leonardi)

Laelaps terrestris Leonardi, 1899: 508 (page 16 in reprint). Laelaps terrestris .— Costa & Hunter, 1971: 324.

Hypoaspis (Hypoaspis) terrestris .— Bregetova, 1977: 496; Karg, 1979: 70, 1982: 236. Coleolaelaps terrestris .— Grandi, 1925: 212.

not Laelaps terrestris Berlese, 1908: 14 .

Specimens examined. Nine females, Nazarabad, 27 August 2008, O. Joharchi coll., on Pentodon idiota ; four females, Karaj, 20 May 2009, O. Joharchi coll., on Polyphylla olivieri larvae and adults.

Notes. Hypoaspis terrestris is very distinctive in the extreme length of dorsal shield setae j3 and S5. The length of these setae separates this species from the related species H. polyphyllae , which was also present in our collections. Our specimens of H. terrestris show some variation in the length of seta j6, which sometimes reaches past the base of J1, but is noticeably shorter in other specimens. The only available illustrations of this species appear to be those of Bregetova (1977), which does not show the length of these setae. This species has been reported from USSR and Italy, in soil and on Copris hispanus and an unidentified species of Cetoniinae . We now record it on two species of beetles in Iran, Pentodon idiota and Polyphylla olivieri . Our specimens were found both on the larvae of P. olivieri in soil, and phoretic on the adult beetles. This is consistent with the original observations of Leonardi (1899).