Ameroseius chinensis, Khalili-Moghadam & Saboori, 2016

Khalili-Moghadam, A. & Saboori, A., 2016, Redescription of Ameroseius eumorphus Bregetova (Acari: Mesostigmata: Ameroseiidae), a new record of Epicriopsis Berlese from Iran and a new homonym in Ameroseiidae, Acarologia 56 (4), pp. 537-551 : 546-549

Ameroseius chinensis nom. nov.

Syn.: Ameroseius qinghaiensis Ma, 2008 (not Ameroseius qinghaiensis Li and Yang, 2000 ).

Ye and Ma (1993) described Ameroseius crassisetosus from Apodemus sylvaticus (Rodentia) in Xinjiang Province, China. Later, Li and Yang (2000) described Ameroseius qinghaiensis from compost in Qinghai Province, China. Then, Ma (2006) synonymized the two mentioned species, but according to our observation and checking of descriptions and figures of these two species and also based on the following diagnostic characters, we believe that these species are not synonyms and each of those are considered as a valid and separate species. Differential characters are as follows: dorsal sheild with 27 pairs of setae in A. qinghaiensis and 29 pairs in A. crassisetosus ; the length of J4 setae in A. crassisetosus is enough long to pass the base of Z5, but these don’t reach the base of Z 5 in A. qinghaiensis ; dorsal setae in A. crassisetosus are much thicker than those in A. qinghaiensis . Also, in addition to the diagnostic characters mentioned above, there are other small diagnostic characters which are shown in Table 3.

Ma (2008) collected another Ameroseius species from Rattus norvegicus (Rodentia) in Qinghai Province, China, described it as a new species and considered the same name ( Ameroseius qinghaiensis ) for it. According to original description and figures of Ameroseius qinghaiensis in these two papers ( Li and Yang 2000 and Ma 2008), they refer to two different species. Characters distinguishing the two species are shown in Table 3. Ameroseius qinghaiensis Ma, 2008 is a junior primary homonym of A. qinghaiensis Li and Yang, 2000 now. For this reason, we propose Ameroseius chinensis nom. nov. as a replacement name for Ameroseius qinghaiensis Ma, 2008 .

Etymology — The specific epithet is derived from the country of origin, China.

Note on Ameroseius lidiae Bregetova, 1977 — Ameroseius lidiae Bregetova, 1977 was redescribed by Khalili-Moghadam and Saboori (2014). The lengths presented for the leg segments were incorrect and the amendment data of leg segment sizes is presented as in Table 4.