Aturus barbatulus K. Viets, 1936

Gerecke, Reinhard, 2014, Studies on European species of the water mite family Aturidae Thor (Acari: Hydrachnidia), Zootaxa 3841 (1), pp. 1-46 : 8

Aturus barbatulus K. Viets, 1936

Fig. 4

Material examined. Italy: Calabria, I 105 (1/1/0); Sicily, I 45 (1/11/5), I 187 (1/0/0), I 237 (1/0/0), I 330 (1/0/0), I 497 (1/2/0), I 502 (3/5/1), I 503 (1/2/0), I 517 (1/1/0), I 667 (1/0/0).

Uncertain records. Italy: Calabria, I 103 (0/1/0); Sardinia, I 369 (0/2/0), I 376 (0/1/0); Sicily, I dp 65 (0/1/0), I 167 (0/1/0), I 221 (0/2/0), I 468 Int (0/1/0), I 501 (0/1/0), I 576 Int (0/1/0).

Remarks. Females found together with male A. barbatulus are characteristic in the combination of (1) a Dgl- 3–4/Dgl-4–5 distance ratio of about 2.5–2.8; (2) location of Vgl on the border between primary and secondary sclerotization, (3) 6–8 (rarely up to 10) acetabula mostly in a single, but irregular line, some of them strongly bi- or trilobate in outline, and (4) a weak sclerotization in the gonopore area projecting in a pair of little distinct posterolateral angles at both sides of gonopore.

Habitat. Preferably in low order streams and shaded spring habitats, in Central Sicily also under semiarid conditions ( Gerecke 1991a). Site I 45, in 1985 an oasis-like isolated hygropetric rheocrene in a forest remnant on Mt. Etna, is meanwhile destroyed.

Figures

FIGURE 4. Aturus barbatulus. A. – B. female; A. venter; B. dorsum; C. – D. male; C, IV-L- 4 / 5; D. dorsum. Scale bars = 100 µm.