Pogonolaelaps Nemati & Gwiazdowicz, 2016

Joharchi, Omid, Ramroodi, Sara & Halliday, Bruce, 2020, Review of the genus Pogonolaelaps Nemati & Gwiazdowicz (Acari: Laelapidae) with description of a new species from Iran, Zootaxa 4820 (3), pp. 465-484 : 466-468

Genus Pogonolaelaps Nemati & Gwiazdowicz, 2016

Pogonolaelaps Nemati & Gwiazdowicz, 2016: 25 .

Type species Laelaps canestrinii Berlese, 1903 , by original designation.

Before we discuss the genus Pogonolaelaps , we must first clarify the identity of its type species. The description of Pogonolaelaps Nemati & Gwiazdowicz, 2016 states that its type species is Laelaps canestrinii Berlese, 1903 . That cannot be true because Berlese (1903) did not describe canestrinii as a new species. Laelaps canestrinii Berlese, 1903 is not a nominal species, so it cannot be the type species of a genus ( ICZN, 1999, Article 67.1). Several authors have discussed the confusion surrounding the name Laelaps canestrinii (for example, Costa, 1962; Hunter, 1967; Joharchi & Halliday, 2013; Nemati & Gwiazdowicz, 2016; Joharchi et al., 2016). We have compiled all the available information about this specific name, and the results are presented in Table 1. We here examine the content and consequences of these publications.

The authorship of the specific name canestrinii

The species was first described as Laelaps canestrinii Berlese, 1892 . Berlese (1903, 1904) did not describe canestrinii as a new species, and the use of these dates for the authorship of the name is incorrect. References to the date of publication as 1887 or 1902 are bibliographic errors.

The type specimens of Laelaps canestrinii Berlese

Berlese (1892a) described the new species Laelaps canestrinii from males and females from two localities— Portici (Naples) and Ponte Molle (Rome). He did not designate a holotype, so these specimens form a syntype series.

Lombardini (1936) catalogued Berlese’s mite collection, and recorded the presence of “ Hypoaspis (Gymnolaelaps) canestrinii Berl. ” without further comment. Castagnoli & Pegazzano (1985) prepared a more detailed catalogue of the Berlese Acaroteca, which listed Berlese’s types of Laelaps canestrinii from Portici, mounted on four slides. Costa (1962) quoted Fausta Pegazzano, who described the specimens from the type locality as “unreadable”. Nemati & Gwiazdowicz (2016) also described the specimens as “in poor condition”, on advice from Roberto Nannelli. The specimen from Spalato listed by Castagnoli & Pegazzano (1985) is not a type.

Berlese’s (1892a) syntypes of Laelaps canestrinii also included specimens from Ponte Molle (Rome). Berlese stated that Canestrini (1885) had misidentified these specimens as Laelaps lignicola Canestrini & Canestrini, 1882 , and that the true L. lignicola was from the type locality, Padova. Later the same year Berlese (1892b) reversed this decision, and identified Canestrini’s specimens from Ponte Molle as Laelaps (Iphis) lignicola . Castagnoli & Pegazzano (1985) did not mention these specimens from Rome in their catalogue of the Berlese Acaroteca, under either of the names canestrinii or lignicola .

Berlese’s description and redescriptions

The illustrations in Berlese (1892a) show a female with a very wide genitiventral shield that carries five pairs of setae, has a straight posterior margin, and broadly abuts the anal shield. There are no setae between the genitiventral and anal shields. In the male, there is a line of demarcation between the sterno-genitiventral shield and the anal shield.

Berlese (1903, page 13) described a new subgenus Laelaps (Eulaelaps) , which included “ L. canestrinii Berl. ”. In Berlese’s genus Laelaps , “Mas scuto ventrale cum anale omnino confuso, scutum unicum sistente, anum comprehendens.” This may be translated as “Ventral and anal shield of the male fused to form a single uniform shield including the anus”. His description of Eulaelaps reads “Femina scuto ventrale ab anale bene distincto et plus minusve discreto…”, which may be translated as “ventral and anal shields of the female clearly distinct and more or less separate….”. These character states should apply to the included species Laelaps (Eulaelaps) canestrinii , but it is difficult to reconcile them with Berlese’s 1892a illustrations.

Berlese (1904, page 412) then discussed a species called Laelaps (Hypoaspis) canestrinii Berl. The date of this publication has sometimes been quoted as 1903, but the previous paper in Redia by Constantino Ribaga is marked March 1904 (page 298). Berlese’s account of Laelaps (Hypoaspis) canestrinii here is clearly not a description of a new species. He cites his own 1892 paper as the source of the name, and refers to previous use of the name by Leonardi (1897). In the female described and illustrated here, the genitiventral shield is narrower than in the 1892 illustration, it has a rounded posterior margin, it carries only one pair of setae, and there is a pair of setae between the genitiventral and anal shields. The anal shield of the female is much narrower than that illustrated in 1892, and the male has a holoventral shield. These illustrations are clearly inconsistent with those of Berlese (1892a).

Recent collections of mites from Portici yielded females consistent with the types in the Berlese Acaroteca, and with the descriptions and illustrations of Berlese (1904) and Nemati & Gwiazdowicz (2016) (Massimo Plumari, personal communication). The genitiventral shield in these specimens has one pair of setae, well inside the margins of the shield; setae Jv1 and Jv3 are on small platelets abutting the lateral margins of the shield; the genitiventral shield has a rounded posterior margin with a truncated central section; the anal shield is longer than wide with an almost straight anterior margin; there is one pair of setae between the genitiventral and anal shields; the metasternal setae are absent; there is one seta (Zv1) between the genitiventral shield and the metapodal plate on each side; and the post-anal seta is longer than the para-anal setae, but not as long as that illustrated by Berlese. The new males from Portici have a distinct anal shield, suggesting that the male illustrated by Berlese (1904) is a misidentified specimen of Gymnolaelaps . On the basis of these observations, we believe that the taxonomic concept of Laelaps canestrinii should be based on the female illustrated by Berlese (1904), and the illustrations in Berlese (1892a) are not accurate.

Oudemans’ use of the name canestrinii

Oudemans (1902, 1903) included Hypoaspis canestrinii Berlese in his keys to species of Hypoaspis , obviously referring to the 1892 description. His 1902 key requires that the female of H. canestrinii has “anal and ventral shields contiguous, touching with parallel lines”. That description is consistent with the illustrations of Berlese (1892a). However, it is not consistent with an unpublished illustration by Oudemans labelled “ Hypoaspis canestrinii Berl. ”, in which the genito-ventrianal shield has a rounded posterior margin, and touches the anal shield only medially ( Naturalis, 2015). Oudemans’ illustration is also inconsistent with the Berlese (1904) concept of Laelaps (Hypoaspis) canestrinii , because it shows the anterior margin of the anal shield convex (concave in Berlese, 1904), pre-sternal plates apparently fused to the sternal shield (separate in Berlese, 1904), anal shield wider than long (length = width in Berlese, 1904), and the sternal shield of Oudemans is much narrower than that of Berlese. Buitendijk (1945) referred to a specimen from San Remo in the Oudemans collection, identified as “ Hypoaspis canestrinii (Berl., 1887) ”. That date must be an error, but this specimen could be the source of Oudemans’ illustrations. The identity of Oudemans’ species remains enigmatic.

Later redescriptions of canestrinii

Schweizer (1961) illustrated a species that he identified as “ Gymnolaelaps canestrinii Berlese 1902 ”. His illustrations do not agree with those of either Berlese (1892a) or Berlese (1904), and they must represent a misidentification of some other species.

Costa (1962) redescribed “ Gymnolaelaps canestrinii ( Berlese, 1903) ” using material from Israel. He compared his specimens with the description of Berlese (1904), and found them to be in general agreement. Costa’s illustrations show a species in which the posterior margin of the genitiventral shield of the female is straight medially, with rounded ends. There is a pair of setae between the genitiventral and anal shields, the metasternal setae are present in the male but absent from the female, and the genitiventral shield of the female carries only setae st5. The male has a completely separate anal shield.A comparison of the illustrations in Berlese (1904), Oudemans (in Naturalis, 2015), Schweizer (1961) and Costa (1962) shows at least two different species, possibly three.

Other literature references

Other authors have used the specific name canestrinii in various combinations. Examples include Gymnolaelaps canestrinii ( Vitzthum, 1929; Sellnick, 1931; Bhattacharyya, 1968; Cheragali et al., 2012; Kazemi & Rajaei, 2013), Laelaps canestrinii ( Tipton, 1960) , Hypoaspis (Gymnolaelaps) canestrinii ( Bregetova, 1977) ; Hypoaspis (Cosmolaelaps) canestrinii ( Karg, 1979) , and Pseudoparasitus (Gymnolaelaps) canestrinii ( Karg, 1981, 1989b, 1993; Joharchi et al., 2011), among others, as listed in Table 1. These authors were probably referring to several different species.

Laelaspisella berlesei

Joharchi (2016, in Joharchi et al., 2016) proposed the new name Laelaspisella berlesei nom. n. as a replacement for L. canestrinii sensu Berlese (1904) and Costa (1962). That action was based on the belief that L. canestrinii sensu Berlese (1904) and Laelaps canestrinii Berlese, 1892 were not the same species. However, that action was not nomenclaturally valid, because the term nomen novum refers to the replacement of an already established name, not a new name for a previously unnamed species. Laelaspisella berlesei is a nomen nudum, not an available name, because type specimens were not designated. The only subsequent use of the name Laelaspisella berlesei was by Maleki et al. (2016).