Nanhermannia elegantula Berlese

van der Hammen, L., 1959, Berlese's Primitive Oribatid Mites, Zoologische Verhandelingen 40, pp. 1-93 : 80

Nanhermannia elegantula Berlese , 1913 (non auct.)

Nanhermannia elegantula Berlese , 1913, p. 100, pl. 7 fig. 84; Lombardini, 1936, p. 45.

Nanhermannia areolata Strenzke , 1953, p. 69, fig. 1.

The type-slides of the species, viz. the nos. 28/41, 42 with specimens from Tiarno (Trentino), are still present in the Collection.

They are conform to the description of N. areolata Strenzke , so that the last-mentioned name must be placed in the synonymy of N. elegantula . As mentioned above, the " elegantula " of most authors is a synonym of N. nanus .

Jacot (1937, p. 238) erroneously considers elegantula a subspecies of N. dorsalis (Banks) . I remark that Jacot knew the identity of the real elegantula because in September 1936 Grandjean sent topotypes of nanus to him, together with elegantula from the environs of Paris. Nevertheless one of Jacot's slides 2) studied by me (no. 34 F 4.3-40, also bearing no. 142, labelled as Nanhermannia dorsalis elegantula , locality not indicated, but certainly U.S.A.), contains specimens that are different from elegantula in the structure of the prodorsum (see also Jacot's fig. 6). For this reason Jacot's " N. dorsalis elegantula " cannot be regarded as a synonym of N. elegantula .

2) Three of Jacot's slides with Nanhermannia species were kindly presented to me by Grandjean.