Scarabaspis Womersley, 1956

Halliday, R. B., 2010, Revision of the Australian Eviphididae (Acari: Mesostigmata) 2596, Zootaxa 2596 (1), pp. 1-60 : 18

Genus Scarabaspis Womersley

Scarabaspis Womersley, 1956: 590 . Type species Scarabaspis aspera Womersley, 1956 , by original designation (= Iphidozercon orientalis Berlese, 1920 . Synonymy by Evans, 1957).

Diagnosis of genus. Eviphididae in which one or both of the setae on coxae I and the posterior seta on coxae II are usually modified into flat oval-shaped disks, rarely unmodified and setiform. Epigynal setae inserted in soft skin outside epigynal shield. Metasternal plates absent, metasternal setae inserted in soft skin, metasternal pores usually inserted in soft skin, rarely on posterior edge of sternal shield. Anterior ends of peritrematal shields broadly fused, and fused with dorsal shield. Palp tarsus with a pair of macroeupathidia.

Notes on the genus. The genus Scarabaspis Womersley was created for S. aspera Womersley from Australia, which was subsequently synonymised with S. orientalis (Berlese) from Java ( Evans 1957). Since then further species have been described or reported from Africa ( Ryke & Meyer 1957; Shoemake & Krantz 1966), Europe ( Karg 1993; Sklyar 1999), Asia ( Ishikawa 1968; Liu et al. 1992; Gu & Fan 1997b), Iran ( Kazemi et al. 2008b) and North America ( Norton & MacNamara 1976; Majka et al. 2007), and the genus now includes nine species. In the adult female of all species for which the female is known, both of the setae on coxa I and the posterior seta on coxa II are represented by flat oval-shaped sclerotised disks. The present paper records three new species of Scarabaspis from Australia, two of which show surprising variants of this character state, and which require an expansion of the concept of the genus.