Proctophyllodes Robin, 1868

Mironov, Sergey V., Literak, Ivan, Sychra, Oldrich & Capek, Miroslav, 2017, Feather mites of the subfamily Proctophyllodinae (Acari: Proctophyllodidae) from passerines (Aves: Passeriformes) in Costa Rica, Zootaxa 4297 (1), pp. 1-105 : 81

Genus Proctophyllodes Robin, 1868

Type species: Dermaleichus glandarinus Koch, 1840 , by subsequent designation.

Proctophyllodes is the most species-rich genus in the family Proctophyllodidae and also among all families of feather mites. Up to now it has included 170 species ( Atyeo & Braasch 1966; Gaud & Atyeo 1996; Mironov 2012, 2017; Mironov & OConnor 2014; Wang et al. 2014). Mites of this genus are associated almost exclusively with oscine passerines and have been recorded from 35 families of this grouping (as classified by Gill & Donsker 2017); additionally, three species inhabit suboscine passerines of the families Furnariidae , Pittidae , and Tyrannidae , and a single species is known from each of the three non-passerine orders Apodiformes (Trochilidae) , Charadriiformes and Piciformes ( Atyeo & Braasch 1966).

The world revision of the genus Proctophyllodes was carried out by Atyeo and Braasch (1966) and this work is still the main taxonomic study of this genus and provides the only non-regional key for identification of its species. These authors proposed subdivision of the genus into 10 species groups although they did not suggest how they might be related to each other. Since then, two more species groups, mecistocaulus and caulifer , were established within Proctophyllodes ( Gaud & Fain 1990; Mironov & Kopij 1996b). An overview of literature published after the revision by Atyeo and Braasch and an updated world checklist of Proctophyllodes species were provided by Mironov (2012). A preliminary phylogenetic study of Proctophyllodes and related proctophyllodids based on molecular data ( Knowles & Klimov 2011) showed the derived position of this genus within the family, and revealed relationships between most previously recognized species groups. This study also showed that the genus Proctophyllodes is paraphyletic, because two highly evolved proctophyllodine genera, Joubertophyllodes Atyeo and Gaud, 1971 and Monojoubertia Radford, 1950 , arise from its core.

The fauna of the genus Proctophyllodes on passerines of the New World currently includes about 70 identified species ( Atyeo & Braasch 1966; Forrester & Spalding 2003; OConnor et al. 2005; Galloway et al. 2014; Mironov & OConnor 2014). In the present work we report 7 species for Costa Rica, including 5 new species.