Pelethiphis crinitus (Berlese)

Mašán, Peter & Halliday, Bruce, 2010, Review of the European genera of Eviphididae (Acari: Mesostigmata) and the species occurring in Slovakia 2585, Zootaxa 2585, pp. 1-122 : 69-70

Pelethiphis crinitus (Berlese)

Iphis crinitus Berlese, 1882a: 343 ; 1886: 10; 1892d: 40.

Copriphis (Pelethiphis) crinitus .— Berlese, 1911: 185; Castagnoli & Pegazzano, 1985: 97.

Iphis elongatus Berlese, 1882a: 345 ; Berlese, 1892d: 40. Synonymy by Berlese (1892d).

Remarks. The identity of this species cannot be established with any confidence. Berlese (1882a) described Iphis crinitus from the dung beetle Atheucus variolosus from Calabria, Italy, but there are no specimens in the Berlese Acaroteca with that label data. Berlese (1886) then redescribed and illustrated Iphis crinitus from Atheucus variolosus from Apulia, Italy. One of us (PM) has examined two of Berlese's slides numbered 123/ 46 and 123/48. These two slides contain 19 specimens (males, females and deutonymphs) collected on Scarabaeus semipunctatus at San Vincenzo, Pisa. These slides are referred to Copriphis (Pelethiphis) crinitus by Castagnoli & Pegazzano (1985), although they are both labelled Copriphis (Pelethiphis) elongatus , and are not labelled as types. They are in very poor condition for examination, but they are clearly not conspecific with those that were well illustrated by Berlese (1886). The Berlese (1886) specimens have extremely long marginal setae, much longer than those of the San Vicenzo specimens. The San Vicenzo specimens could however be conspecific with those on slide number 4/12, which is labelled Copriphis (Pelethiphis) crinitus var. curtipilus (= Alliphis siculus ) and listed under the name Eviphis siculus by Castagnoli & Pegazzano (1985), and collected from the same dung beetle host ( Scarabaeus semipunctatus ). The Berlese Acaroteca also contains vial number 6/257, labelled Iphis crinitus , from Florence, but those specimens have not been examined in this study.

Berlese (1882a) (p. 69) described two species, Iphis crinitus (p. 343) and Iphis elongatus (p. 345), but later ( Berlese 1892d) synonymised these two species. There are no types for either of these species in the Berlese Acaroteca, so the validity of this synonymy is also questionable. Despite the fact that the voucher slides in Florence are labelled Copriphis (Pelethiphis) elongatus, Berlese (1911) described another Copriphis species under the name Copriphis elongatus from America. In addition, Shoemake (1970) synonymised I. crinitus with Iphis ciliatus C. L. Koch, 1839 , but that synonymy is not considered to be valid here. Our concept of Pelethiphis crinitus is based on the illustrations of Berlese (1886).