Pelethiphis insignis (Berlese)

Mašán, Peter & Halliday, Bruce, 2010, Review of the European genera of Eviphididae (Acari: Mesostigmata) and the species occurring in Slovakia 2585, Zootaxa 2585, pp. 1-122 : 70

Pelethiphis insignis (Berlese)

Copriphis (Pelethiphis) insignis Berlese, 1911: 185, 1913b: 197 ; Castagnoli & Pegazzano, 1985: 198.

Pelethiphis insignis .— Karg, 1963: 278; 1976: 3.

Remarks. There are 22 females of this species on four original slides in the Berlese Acaroteca, collected from Gymnopleurus pilularius in Italy (San Vincenzo, Pisa). All slides are labelled “tipico” and numbered as follows: 122/33, 122/35–37. Only some of the specimens are partly observable. This species can be recognised by the following morphological features: large species, with idiosoma about 950 µm in length; dorsal shield with more than 30 pairs of setae (32 or 33 pairs); apart from setae z1 and z5, all other dorsal setae are very long, including those in the central area of the shield, so the medial and marginal dorsal setae are subequal in length; opisthogastric surface polytrichous, lateral and opisthogastric soft integument with 30–35 pairs of setae; presternal platelet apparently absent; post-anal seta is conspicuously longer than adanal setae. Shoemake (1970) synonymised Pelethiphis rufescens ( Lombardini 1941) , known from Africa, with P. insignis , but these species can be easily distinguished by some characters of dorsal chaetotaxy.