Scapulaseius reptans (Blommers)

Kreiter, Serge, Payet, Rose-My, Douin, Martial, Fontaine, Olivier, Jacques, Fillâtre & Bellec, Fabrice Le, 2020, Phytoseiidae of La Réunion Island (Acari: Mesostigmata): three new species and two males described, new synonymies, and new records, Acarologia 60 (1), pp. 111-195 : 141

Scapulaseius reptans (Blommers)

Amblyseius (Amblyseius) reptans Blommers 1974: 145 .

Typhlodromips reptans, Moraes et al. 1986: 146 ; Moraes et al. 2004a: 222.

Scapulaseius reptans, Chant & McMurtry 2005c: 335 ; Chant & McMurtry 2007: 68.

This species belongs to the ficilocus species group of the genus Scapulaseius as the setae R1 are inserted on lateral integument of adult female ( Chant and McMurtry 2005c). This species group contains 40 species with setae R1 inserted on the lateral integument of the adult female.

This species is mentioned only from the Indian Ocean area, Madagascar (Blommers 1974), La Réunion ( Quilici et al. 2000) and recently Mauritius ( Kreiter et al. 2018a). Species of this genus Scapulaseius are supposed to be of type III ( McMurtry and Croft 1997; McMurtry et al. 2013), i.e. polyphagous generalist predators. However, the biology of S. reptans remains unknown. S. reptans was already mentioned from La Réunion by Quilici et al. (2000). Exact indications of locations were provided in this paper but without any measurements of specimens collected. They are provided for specimens collected during this study and listed in table 15.

Specimens examined: 2 ♀♀ + 1 ♂ in total, all measured. Ravine Langevin – Grand-Galet Waterfall (aasl 850 m, Long 55°21’33” E, Lat 21°17’47” S), 1 ♀ + 1 ♂ on D. incanum , 11/12/2016; Petite Île – Piton Bloc, Yébo Luguy farm (aasl 973 m, Long 55°34’64” E, Lat 21°18’64” S), 1 ♀ + 1 im. on L. camara , 9/1/2017.

Remarks: measurements of the two female and the male specimens in the table 15 show a great overlap with measurements mentioned in Kreiter et al. (2018a) on specimens from Mauritius, except for setae S2, S4 and S5 which are longer in La Réunion specimens. Setae of specimens from La Réunion are generally longer, except for j1 and the macroseta of genu I that are nearly the same as for specimens from Mauritius. However, sternogenital shield is longer in Mauritius specimens. Both specimens from La Réunion and Mauritius have globally greater dimensions than type specimens from Madagascar, especially setae.

Ferragut and Baumann (2019) discussed a possible synonymy between S. reptans and S. asiaticus (Evans) recently. Our specimens of La Réunion Island markedly differ from specimens of S. asiaticus collected recently in Vietnam (Kreiter et al. in prep.) and we therefore disagree with this possible synonymy with arguments that will be developed in a future paper.