First record of Leptus species (Trombidiformes, Erythraeidae) parasitizing solitary wasps of Crabronidae (Hymenoptera, Apoidea) in Türkiye

ABSTRACT

Mites and insects have different kinds of relationships with each other, which is very important to be studied. One of these relationships is parasitism, which is seen between larvae of terrestrial Parasitengona mites (Acari: Trombidiformes) and different active stages of insects. This study aimed to determine parasitic mites associated with the solitary wasps of the family Crabronidae. The presence of mites was investigated on 3247 wasp individuals belonging to 250 species from 53 genera. Among them, 32 specimens representing 23 species were parasitized by Leptus Latreille mite larvae. As a result, a total of 58 mite larvae were detected and two species, Leptus rosellae Haitlinger, 1999 and L. tridentatus Saboori, Hakimitabar & Khademi, 2018, were identified. The latter one has been reported for the first time from Türkiye and all mite-parasitized wasp species are new host records of both mite species.  This study is the first record of the parasite-host relationship between the family Crabronidae and the genus Leptus.

KEYWORDS:

• Hymenoptera
• Crabronidae
• parasitic mites
• Leptus rosellae
• Leptus tridentatus
• Türkiye

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).