Scapulaseius reptans (Blommers)

Kreiter, Serge, Fontaine, Olivier & Payet, Rose-My, 2018, New records of Phytoseiidae (Acari: Mesostigmata) from Mauritius, Acarologia 58 (4), pp. 773-785 : 780

Scapulaseius reptans (Blommers)

Amblyseius (Amblyseius) reptans Blommers, 1974: 145 .

Typhlodromips reptans, Moraes et al., 1986: 146 ; Moraes et al., 2004: 222.

Scapulaseius reptans, Chant & McMurtry, 2005: 335 ; Chant & McMurtry, 2007: 68.

Specimens examined — Chamouny (20°28’55.99”S, 57°27’58.00”E, alt. 128 m), 2 ?? and

1? on an unknown host plant, 21-IX-2017.

Previous Records — La Réunion, Madagascar.

Remarks — Measurements of collected females are consistently longer than reported for the type specimens ( Table 4 ). Measurements of the only male specimen collected ( Table 5 ) are more variable in comparison with the type specimens. In Mauritius specimen, setae s4,

Z4, Z5 and macrosetae SgeIV are longer but setae z2, z4, S2, S4, and S5 are shorter than type specimens. The rest of the measurements however agree well with the original description of Blommers (1974) and with our own measurements of females and males collected in La Réunion Island ( Quilici et al. 2000 and Kreiter et al. in prep.).

Species of this genus Scapulaseius are supposed to be of type III ( McMurtry and Croft 1997; McMurtry et al. 2013), i.e. a polyphagous generalist predator. However, the biology of S. reptans remains totally unknown.