Guntheria Womersley, 1939 and two related genera of chigger mites (Acariformes: Trombiculidae) in Africa, with a description of one new species

ABSTRACT

A new species Guntheria chawiensis sp. n. was described from an alcohol-fixed specimen of shrew originating from Kenya and deposited in the collection of Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale (Tervuren, Belgium). This species represents the first record of the genus Guntheria Womersley, 1939, which occurs almost exclusively in Australia and New Guinea, on the African continent. Other African species previously associated with the genus name Guntheria are reviewed, namely, Guntherana hexasternalaea Vercammen-Grandjean, 1960 and Euschoengastia laurenti Jadin and Vercammen-Grandjean, 1954. The former species was placed in a monotypic genus Hexasternalaea Vercammen-Grandjean, 1960, stat. n. and the latter species was recognized as a member of previously monotypic genus Makwacarus Stekolnikov, 2018. Thus, two new combinations were established – Hexasternalaea hexasternalaea comb. n. and Makwacarus laurenti comb. n.

http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:86FC3694-3822-4E3C-B811-CA6BDA6191D9

KEYWORDS:

• Chiggers
• taxonomy
• Tropical Africa
• Kenya
• parasites of mammals

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the collection curator Emmanuel Gilissen (MRAC) who permitted my work with the collection of alcohol-fixed mammals and to Wim Wendelen (formerly collection and data manager in MRAC) for his help in this work. I appreciate the help of my wife, Victoria A Stekolnikova (ZIN), who has prepared the microscope slides as a part of her volunteer activity. I am thankful to two anonymous reviewers for useful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation [No. 23-24-00065].