Typhlodromalus athiasae (Pritachard & Baker)

Kreiter, Serge, Payet, Rose-My, Mouigni, Hadji, Douin, Martial, Tixier, Marie-Stéphane & Azali, Hamza Abdou, 2021, New records of phytoseiid mites (Acari: Mesostigmata) of Grande Comore Island (Comoros Archipelago), Acarologia 61 (2), pp. 241-273 : 256-257

Typhlodromalus athiasae (Pritachard & Baker)

Amblyseius (Amblyseius) athiasae Pritchard & Baker 1962: 291 .

Amblyseiella athiasae, Moraes et al. 1986: 4 .

Typhlodromalus athiasae, Moraes et al. 2004b: 196, 2006: 13 , Chant & McMurtry 2005b: 199,

2007: 111.

This species and the species to follow belongs to the athiasae species group ( Chant and McMurtry 2005b, Moraes et al. 2006). It was described from Zaire by Pritchard and Baker (1962) and was redescribed by Moraes et al. (2006) from specimens collected in various African countries. Its biology remains totally unknown.

World distribution: Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, DR Congo, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda.

Specimens examined: 19 specimens (2 ♂♂, 15 ♀♀ and 2 imm.) collected during this study. Mvouni, University of Comoros (434 m aasl, lat. 11°43 ′ 11 ″ S, long. 43°16 ′ 31 ″ E), 1 ♂,

2 ♀♀ and 1 imm. on Stachytarpheta jamaicensis (Verbenaceae) and 1 ♂ and 6 ♀♀ on Bidens pilosa L. ( Asteraceae ), 6/XII/2018 ; Moroni, Le Kalyptus Hotel (24 m aasl, lat. 11°40 ′ 58 ″

S, long. 43°15 ′ 45 ″ E), 1 ♀ on Lantana camara L. (Verbenacae) with eriophyid galls and 2

♀♀ on Ricinus communis L. ( Euphorbiaceae ), 7/XII/2018 ; Djoumoichongo (230 m aasl, lat. 11°48 ′ 34 ″ S, long. 43°17 ′ 37 ″ E), 2 ♀♀ on S. jamaicensis and 2 ♀♀ and 1 imm. on Occimum gratissimum L. ( Lamiaceae ), 10/XII/2018.

Remarks: morphological and morphometric characters and all measurements ( Tables 5 and 6) of specimens collected in Grande Comore Island fit well measurements in the literature; with only slight differences except:

• concerning females ( Table 5 ), seta z5 which shorter in specimens from Grande Comore.

• concerning males ( Table 6), setae S2 and z2 which shorter in specimens from Grande Comore Island and seta r3 and length and width of ventrianal shield which are longer in specimens from Grande Comore Island. However, males collected in Grande Comore Island and in Kenya were very few (2 for both). According to Tixier (2012) this number of males are lower than the minimum number of specimens needed to determine intraspecific variations.

This is the first mention of that species for the Indian Ocean and outside the Africa continent.