Complementary description of three species of the subgenus Anthoseius De Leon (Acari: Phytoseiidae) from India

Abstract

Taxonomy of the subgenus Anthoseius De Leon (Acari: Phytoseiidae) has become challenging and often causing confusions among taxonomists. We here provide complementary descriptions of three species, T. (A.) bengalensis Karmakar et al., T. (A.) bulbosis Karmakar et al., and T. (A.) serrulatus Ehara, based on the specimens collected from Karnataka, India. During the identification of our specimens, we observed several important morphological differences between the new specimens and the original descriptions of the first two species. The morphological differences include number of dorsal solenostomes (absence or presence of gd5), position of preanal pores, chelicera dentition including position of teeth, shape of calyx of spermatheca, and leg chaetotaxy including number of setae on genu II, number of macrosetae and shape of ventral setae. Since these characters are crucial for phytoseiid taxonomy, we decided to examine the type specimens of these two species. Our examination on their holotypes confirmed that the morphological characters mentioned above are different than those reported in their original descriptions, but identical to the complementary descriptions provided here. In addition, T. (A.) serrulatus has not been recognized by several acarologists and repeatedly described under different names. We proposed five new and three suspected synonymies for this species. Lastly, we also provided the first description of males of T. (A.) bengalensis.