Dolichoderinae

K, Julia Baumann, 2024, An update on the knowledge about scutacarid mites as phoronts and inquilines, Acarologia 64 (1), pp. 3-17 : 8

Dolichoderinae , Ponerinae (Annex V)

In the subfamily Dolichoderinae , two new Tapinoma species have been reported as hosts

for Scutacaridae . A not nearer identified Scutacarus species has been found associated with Tapinoma sessile , an invasive species occurring in natural and urban areas all over North America ( Uppstrom 2010, Blumenfeld et al. 2021), and Imparipes comatus Mahunka, 1970

has been reported on Tapinoma tauridis from Iran ( Sobhi et al. 2017a). However, T. tauridis

is currently considered to be a junior synonym of T. erraticum ( Bolton 1995, updated online

2020) which has been listed as host for I. comatus before (see Baumann 2018).

Until now, only one ant species ( Ponera coarcata ) of the subfamily Ponerinae has been known as host for Scutacaridae , and it has already been stated that intensified collection effort of these ants should increase the number of associated mites (Baumann 2018). Uppstrom (2010) effectively reported two not nearer identified Imparipes species and one Scutacarus species

from Ponera pennsylvanica from North America, and Lopes et al. (2015) cite a Japanese

book by Maruyama et al. (2013) who report a Scutacarus species attached to Brachyponera chinensis .

Rocha et al. (2020) also reported scutacarid mites phoretic on Neoponera villosa from Mexico ; however, I was able to study the respective mites in December 2022 and they turned

out not to be scutacarids, but members of the morphologically similar neopygmephorid genus Petalomium (Baumann unpublished).

The following new scutacarids have been described as associates of ant species belonging to the subfamily Formicinae (Annex VI) : six Scutacarus species Thaumatopelvis lorasiacus Navabi & Hajiqanbar, 2018 and Imparipes hajiqanbari Rahiminejad et al., 2022 . Moreover, I. lituanicus Lazauskene & Sevastianov, 1974 , which was until now only known from forest

litter, has been reported associated with Lasius sp. ( Rahiminejad et al. 2022).

The genus Anoplolepsis was reported as host for scutacarids for the first time, specifically for Scutacarus olszanowskii Khaustov et al., 2020 and S. variabilis Khaustov et al., 2020 .

This case is interesting as the host ants were found in old termite nests Trinervitermes of trinervoides ( Khaustov et al. 2020) . Another new host genus was Lasiophanes , an endemic genus of Patagonia. Lasiophanes picinus , a terrestrial species that lives in relatively humid soils ( Fergnani et al. 2008), was found as host species for S. neotropicus Khaustov, 2017 ( Khaustov 2017b).

Thaumatopelvis lorasiacus was not only found on Formicinae , but also phoretic on ants of the genus Pheidole ( Rahiminejad et al. 2022) , which belongs to the subfamily Myrmicinae (Annex VII) . Two more new Scutacarus were described associated with this subfamily: S. ebermanni Sobhi & Hajiqanbar, 2017 and S. shajariani Sobhi & Hajiqanbar, 2017 ( Sobhi et al. 2017b).

Khaustov and Tolstikov (2016) and Silva et al. (2019) mentioned the attachment sites of several of the found scutacarid species in their papers (for details, see Annex V - VII). These authors also reported that the scutacarids could be found on workers of various ant species and also on winged ants (that is, sexual forms). In accordance with this finding, Imparipes hajiqanbari was also collected from alates of Lasius sp. ( Rahiminejad et al. 2022).