Allozercon Vitzthum 1926

Gerdeman, Beverly S., Garcia, Rufino C., Herczak, Andrew & Klompen, Hans, 2018, Philippinozercon, a new genus of Heterozerconidae (Parasitiformes: Mesostigmata), with description of all active instars, Zootaxa 4540 (1), pp. 7-22 : 9-10

Allozercon Vitzthum 1926

Allozercon Vitzthum 1926: 104

Asioheterozercon Fain 1989: 146 ; syn. nov.

Type species: Allozercon fecundissimus Vitzthum 1926 , by monotypy.

Updated diagnosis (based on adults). With the following combination of characters: adults lacking spine-like setae latero-ventrally on the idiosoma; metapodal shields with rounded postero-lateral margins; setae Jv5 inserted posterior to the fusion line of the ventral and anal shields; with one pair of greatly elongated setae inserted on the postero-marginal shield. Females with sternal setae st2 and st3 inserted on soft cuticle; lacking a strip-like sclerite between the geniti-ventral and the endopodal-sternal shield remnants. Males with a well sclerotized, rounded, axial extension of the palp trochanter (unique); sternal setae st3 inserted on soft cuticle between the geniti-ventral and endopodal-sternal shield remnants.

Other described species included in Allozercon :

Heterozercon audax Berlese 1910 (= Heterozercon elapsus Vitzthum 1926 , synonymy Vitzthum (1925).

Geographic range: Specimens belonging to this genus have been reported from Indonesia ( Berlese, 1910; Vitzthum, 1925), Malaysia ( Womersley, 1958), India ( Rangaswamy & Channa Basavanna, 1973), and the Philippines ( Gerdeman & Garcia, 2009), with additional records from Thailand and Laos (OSAL collection).

Comparison with related taxa: Allozercon can be differentiated from all other genera by the presence of a well sclerotized, rounded, axial extension on the palp trochanter of the males (vs. extension absent ( Afroheterozercon Fain ) or membranous ( Amheterozercon , Heterozercon Berlese , Maracazercon Fain , Narceoheterozercon , Philippinozercon gen. nov.). The diagnostic character that the tarsus and tibia of legs I are distinctly narrower than the remaining segments of this leg, listed by Fain (1989), is rejected. The difference in relative thickness in Allozercon species vs. other heterozerconid genera is not always distinct.

Note 1: The diagnosis of Asioheterozercon does not provide any distinguishing characters between that genus and Allozercon . This is consistent with observations on specimens in the OSAL collection which represent multiple species, but which are all very similar. To avoid retaining two generic concepts that appear to cover the same group of mites and that cannot be distinguished, we propose Asioheterozercon Fain as a subjective junior synonym of Allozercon Vitzthum.

Note 2: The continued recognition of Allozercon Vitzthum (Heterozerconidae) could raise a nomenclatural problem as the same name was subsequently proposed for a genus of Zerconidae ( Błaszak, 1984) . This issue was addressed by Koçak & Kemal (Koçak & Kemal, 2008; Kemal & Koçak, 2009) who proposed the replacement name Blaszakzercon Kemal & Koçak for the zerconid genus.