Phytoseius crinitus Swirski & Shechter, 1961

Kreiter, Serge & Abo-Shnaf, Reham I. A., 2020, New records of phytoseiid mites from Mauritius Island (Acari: Mesostigmata, Acarologia 60 (3), pp. 520-545 : 537

Phytoseius crinitus Swirski & Shechter

Phytoseius (Dubininellus) crinitus Swirski & Shechter 1961: 102 ; Amitai & Swirski 1966: 21; Denmark 1966: 66; Swirski & Amitai 1966: 11; Moraes et al. 1986: 220.

Phytoseius crinitus, Moraes et al. 2004: 236 ; Chant & McMurtry 2007: 129.

This species belongs to the horridus species group ( Chant and McMurtry 1994). It was recorded in several countries of Asia, in Burundi, Madagascar ( Demite et al. 2020) and La Réunion ( Quilici et al. 2000). The biology of P. crinitus remains totally unknown.

World distribution: Burundi, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Madagascar Island, Philippines, La Réunion Island, Singapore, Taiwan.

Specimens examined: 21 ♀♀ in total. Curepipe, Anderson street (aasl 560 m, lat. 20°19 ′ 11 ″ S, long. 57°31 ′ 52 ″ E), 13 ♀♀ on Litsea glutinosa (Loureiro) Robinson (Lauraceae) , 27/X/2018; Curepipe, Botanical Garden (aasl 540 m, lat. 20°19 ′ 28 ″ S, long. 57°30 ′ 50 ″ E), 1 ♀ on Vernicia montana Loureiro (Euphorbiaceae) , 29/X/2018; Nouvelle-France (aasl 442 m, lat. 20°22 ′ 34 ″ S, long. 57°35 ′ 58 ″ E), 1 ♀ on Camelia sinensis (L.) Kuntze ( Theaceae ), 31/X/2018; Belle Rive (aasl 158 m, lat. 20°19 ′ 24 ″ S, long. 57°42 ′ 08 ″ E), 1 ♀ on Acalypha hispida Burman (Euphorbiaceae) , 1/XI/2018; Baie du Cap, sea front (aasl 158 m, lat. 20°30 ′ 14 ″ S, long. 57°23 ′ 02 ″ E), 3 ♀♀ on Casuarina equisetifolia L. ( Casuarinaceae ), 5/XI//2018; Morne-Brabant (aasl 249 m, lat. 20°22 ′ 05 ″ S, long. 57°29 ′ 31 ″ E), 2 ♀♀ on Chromolaena odorata (L.) R.M. King and H. Robinson ( Asteraceae ), 5/XI/2018.

Remarks: this species is the more numerous species of Phytoseius collected in the present study. This was also the case with Ferragut and Baumann (2019) along with Phytoseius haroldi . It was reported for the first time by these authors from Mauritius, but was already reported by Quilici et al. (2000) from Mascareignes Archipelago in La Réunion Island where Kreiter et al. (2020c) had recovered high numbers of the species. Morphological and morphometric characters and all measurements of our specimens fit well measurements in Kreiter et al. (2020c).