Moanabates, Smit & Pešić, 2020

Smit, Harry & Pešić, Vladimir, 2020, New records of water mites from New Zealand, with the description of three new genera and ten new species (Acari: Hydrachnidia), Acarologia 60 (4), pp. 903-950 : 922

Moanabates n. gen.

Zoobank: 736BA860-45B5-49DC-BA2E-5BC0CF74112F

Diagnosis. Idiosoma rugose. Cx­II and Cx­III elongated posteriorly, apodemes large exceeding Cx­1+2 caudal margin especially in male; male gonopore slit­like; P2 with a large ventral projection with large papillae, P3 without papillae, P4 stocky with a long, whip­like seta (longer in female than in male), P5 with a pair of ventrally situated spatulate setae in the both sexes.

Type species: Moanabates moanaensis n. sp.

Etymology. Named for its occurrence near the town of Moana.

Remarks. The new genus belongs to a group of genera called by Cook (1983) the Corticacarus ­like mites. This group comprises of Zelandobates , Procorticacarus K.O. Viets from Australia and Corticacarus Lundblad from the New World. The new genus shares a number of characters with Zelandobates , but differs in the elongated Cx­II and Cx­III, P2 with a ventral projection and P4 with a long whip­like seta; all these palp characters absent in Zelandobates . Species of the genus Procorticacarus K.O. Viets have P2 with a ventral projection, but lack a long whip­like setae of P4. Moreover, male Procorticacarus species do not have a slit­like gonopore. Corticacarus species have specialized dorsal glandularia, which are absent in the new genus, and Corticacarus species do not have a slit­like gonopore and lack the long whip­like seta of P4.