A new marine water mite species (Acari, Hydrachnidia, Pontarachnidae) from a coastal lake in Southeast Madagascar

Abstract

Litarachna madagascariensis, a new species of the marine water mite family Pontarachnidae (Acari: Hydrachnidia), is described from a coastal lake in Southeast Madagascar. From the most similar species, i.e. Litarachna smiti Pešić et al., 2008 and L. bartschae Smit, 2003, sharing a ventral projection on P-2 and the setal tubercle and peg-like seta on P-4, the new species can be distinguished by the combination of the glandularium-like structure fused with Cx-IV and, restricted to males, the medial apodemes of Cx-IV not extending beyond the anterior margin of the genital field and a moderate number of perigenital setae (19–21 pairs). The total number of Pontarachnidae species worldwide tallies now to 44 species.

Keywords:

• Water mites
• Litarachna
• new species
• Indian Ocean
• Madagascar

Published in collaboration with the University of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Published in collaboration with the University of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Dr Reinhard Gerecke (Tübingen, Germany) for loan of the studied material and for critically reading former drafts of this article, helping to improve it with numerous useful and friendly suggestions; and to Dr Tom Goldschmidt (München, Germany), who collected with R. Gerecke the pontarachnid mites on Madagascar. Dr Nikolaos Schizas (Mayagüez, USA) reviewed the English. Furthermore, I am thankful to Dr Franz Uiblein (Norway) and two anonymous referees for their careful work and valuable suggestions.

Notes

Published in collaboration with the University of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Denmark