Two new species of Protoribates (Acari, Oribatida), with findings of Oripodoidea from Peru

ABSTRACT

Two new species of oribatid mites of the genus Protoribates (Oribatida, Haplozetidae) are described based on adult specimens from upper soil and leaf litter in a primary evergreen lowland rainforest in Amazonian Peru. Protoribates curvicarinatus sp. nov. is morphologically most similar to P. antillensis Mahunka, 1985, but differs by the morphology of bothridial setae and length of interlamellar setae and lamellae. Protoribates paraecuadoriensis sp. nov. is morphologically most similar to P. ecuadoriensis Ermilov, Bayartogtokh, Sandmann, Marian and Maraun, 2013 from Ecuador, but differs by the morphology of tarsi I and II and localization of lamellar setae. Three species of Oripodoidea – Unguizetes incertus (Balogh and Mahunka, 1969), Perscheloribates rostratus (Hammer, 1958) and Benoibates borhidii Balogh and Mahunka, 1980 – are recorded in Peru for the first time.

KEYWORDS:

• Oribatid mites
• morphology
• systematics
• record
• neotropical region

Acknowledgements

I cordially thank two anonymous reviewers for the valuable comments; Prof. Dr. Roy A. Norton (State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, USA) who studied for us the specimens of Protoribates oblongus (Ewing, 1909) from personal collection; Dr. Juliane and Erich Diller for kindly inviting one of us (Stefan Friedrich) to Panguana; Franz Wachtel (Grünwald, Germany) for expertise and assistance in the field and allocation of the Winkler extractors; Dr. Gerardo Lamas Müller and Dr. Diana Silva Dávila (both Museo de Historia Natural, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Peru) for cooperation; and the Dirección General Forestal y de Fauna Silvestre for issuing a collecting permit (# 0276-2013-AG-DGFFS-DGEFFS) and export permit (# 000521-MINAGRI-DGFFS).

Notes

1. Material examined: see “Material and methods” section. All specimens are deposited in the collection of the Tyumen State University Museum of Zoology, Tyumen, Russia. Four species (Monoschelobates sp., Perscheloribates sp., Scheloribates sp. [all Scheloribatidae] and Neoribates sp. [Parakalummidae]) are not included here.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by Prof. Dr. Roland Melzer (Zoologische Staatssammlung München, München, Germany) and the “ Freunde der Zoologischen Staatssammlung”. An overarching project, faunistic study on the South American mites, was supported by the Russian Science Foundation [project: 14-14-01134].