Phytoseius intermedius Evans & Macfarlane

Phytoseius (Dubininellus) intermedius Evans & Macfarlane 1962: 587; Denmark 1966: 70; Gupta 1977: 636.

Phytoseius (Phytoseius) intermedius, Ehara 1972: 170, 1975: 27; Prasad 1974: 171; Blommers 1976: 82; Moraes et al. 1986: 222, 2004: 242; Chant & McMurtry 2007: 129.

Phytoseius (Phytoseius) yira Pritchard & Baker 1962: 227 (synonymy according to Denmark 1966).

This species belongs to the horridus species group as setae J2 and R1 are absent (Chant and McMurtry 1994). It was recorded in several countries of Asia, Africa, Madagascar (Demite et al. 2020) and was known from La Réunion (Quilici et al. 2000; Demite et al. 2020).

The biology of this species remains totally unknown. This is the most numerous species of Phytoseius in this study.

Specimens examined: 13 ♀♀ in total. Port-Mathurin, City Center (11 m aasl, lat. 19°40 ′ 53 ″ S, long. 63°25 ′ 17 ″ E), 1 ♀ on Cordia dichotoma Forster (Boraginaceae), 3 ♀♀ on Ziziphus mauritiana L. ( Rhamnaceae), 8/XI/2018; Anse aux Anglais (2 m aasl, lat. 19°40 ′ 33 ″ S, long. 63°26 ′ 05 ″ E), 6 ♀♀ on C. dichotoma, 11/XI/2018; Port Sud-Est, Sea Front (2 m aasl, lat. 19°44 ′ 36 ″ S, long. 63°25 ′ 17 ″ E), 3 ♀♀ on Cordia myxa L. ( Boraginaceae), 11/XI/2018.

Remarks: measurement values of morphological characters of specimens from Rodrigues and specimens from neighbouring countries are very close, especially for specimens from La Réunion (Kreiter et al. 2020c).