Caraboacarus karenae Nickel and Elzinga, 1969

Rahiminejad, Vahid, Yahyapour, Eliye, Ghandhari, Yasaman & Jafari, Fakhteh, 2024, New reports of caraboacarid mites (Acari: Trochometridioidea) from Iran, with some notes on their host specificity, Persian Journal of Acarology 13, pp. 427-433 : 429

Caraboacarus karenae Nickel and Elzinga, 1969

Material examined – Ninteen females were detached from a single specimen of Scarites Fabricius, 1775 , attracted to a light trap in Alangdareh forest, Gorgan , Golestan Province, 36.45° N, 54.27° E, and altitude 301 m a.s.l., July 28, 2023, coll. Vahid Rahiminejad ; As well as, seven females were obtained from soil samples, in A’ali-Kola forest, Sari , Mazandaran province, 36.21° N, 53.65° E, and altitude 112 m a.s.l., July 13, 2023, coll. E. Yahyapour.

World distribution and Host specificity – This species was described and reported from North America and Asia ( Nickel and Elzinga 1969; Rahiminejad et al. 2010, 2023; Katlav et al. 2015).

Remarks – Nickel and Elzinga (1969) described C. karenae from Kansas, USA and vaguely separated from C. stammeri mainly by following characters: first dorsal shield of hysterosoma tripartite (first dorsal shield of hysterosoma single plate in C. stammeri ), tibia of first leg with two solenidia (tibia with one solenidion in C. stammeri ) and some other characters that are not trustworthy. According to original descriptions and drawings and also the drawings prepared by Hajiqanbar et. al. (2008), it seems length and position of setae c 1 and d are the best differential characters between these species; therefore setae c 1 and d are blunt-ended and never reaches to posterior border of their tergites in C. karenae while setae c 1 and d are pointed and extend beyond posterior border of their tergites in C. stammeri , also seta c 2 more than four times longer than c 1 in C. karenae while seta c 2 almost three times longer than c 1 in C. stammeri .