Persian Journal of Acarology
Volume:7 Issue: 3, Summer 2018

In this paper, a new species of the genus Laelaspis Berlese, L. angustiseta sp. nov. is described based on morphological characters of the adult female specimens collected in association with Tapinoma erraticum (Latreille) and Tapinoma simrothi Krausse (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Chaharmahal va Bakhtiari Province, Iran.

A new species of the genus Eustigmaeus (Acari: Stigmaeidae), E. vietnamiensis sp. nov. is described from the bark of fig tree (Ficus sp.) in Cat Tien National Park, Vietnam. The mite family Stigmaeidae is recorded from Vietnam for the first time.

Antennoseius (Antennoseius) gwiazdowiczi Kavianpour & Nemati was described based on morphological characters of adult females and published in Iranian Journal of Entomology. This journal was published in electronic form only without permanent archiving and is not available now. Also, the work is not registered in ZooBank. To be considered validly published, according to the ICZN rules a work that has been issued and distributed electronically, must possess several conditions such as registration in ZooBank. Due to the absence of such a condition, this species is not available now. For this reason, the description of this species based on morphological characters of adult females is presented here.

Trophic breadth niche, prey preference and developmental time of an unidentified Balaustium sp. (Acari: Erythraeidae) were studied under laboratory conditions. The prey offered consisted of immature and adult stages of Tetranychus urticae Koch, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius), Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) and Macrosiphum euphorbiae (Thomas). The breadth of the trophic niche increased as mites developed. All active stages of Balaustium sp. consumed more than one kind of prey. Adults were the most generalist while larvae can be considered oligophagous. Larval instar significantly selected T. urticae eggs, deutonymphs substantially chose whiteflies, and thrips nymphs and adults were non-selective, eating any type of prey they could catch. Details of the development of the different stages are provided.

Citrus red mite (CRM), Panonychus citri (McGregor) (Acari: Tetranychidae) is one of the important citrus pests in different parts of the world including northern Iran. Population fluctuation and spatial distribution pattern of this pest was studied in Ghaemshahr, northern Iran during 2016–2017 in different initial infestation treatments (paired-treatment and multiple-treatment experiments) that had been designed for crop loss assessment caused by CRM. Taylor's Power Law and Iwao's Patchiness Regression methods were used to determine the spatial distribution pattern of CRM. The results showed that the highest population density of the pest was during summer of 2016 and 2017 with an average of 127.3 and 91.15 CRM per leaf, respectively, and the population declined in the fall with an average of near zero mites per leaf. The spatial distribution pattern of CRM in both years and both methods was aggregated with an exception in which it was random. It could be concluded that initial infestion with different densities of the pest affected the population fluctuation of the pest during the growing season and somewhat the spatial distribution pattern of CRM.

Two-spotted spider mite, Teranychus urticae (Acari: Tetranychide), is one of the most important agricultural pests throughout the world. The high reproductive potential, short life cycle, combined with frequent acaricide applications has resulted in resistance development to a wide range of acaricides. Resistance to acaricides has an important role in inefficiency of chemical control of this pest. In the present study, the susceptibility of two populations of two-spotted spider mite collected from Karaj (KrS) and Mahallat (MhR) to spirodiclofen was investigated.
The bioassay was conducted using a leaf-dip method on same-age protonymphs. Bioassay results showed that there was a significant difference between LC50 values of KrS and MhR populations. The resistance ratio was obtained as 22.19. The synergistic effects of triphenyl phosphate (TPP), piperonyl butoxide (PBO) and diethyl maleate (DEM) were assessed using residual contact vial (RCV) bioassay method. Results of the synergistic studies showed significant differences between LC50 values of spirodiclofen with spirodiclofen PBO and spirodiclofen TPP in MhR population. The most synergistic effect in MhR population was related to PBO. The results of enzyme assays revealed that the most ratio activity in MhR population to KrS population was related to cytochrome P450 monoxygenase (3.02) and the lowest ratio activity was related to glutathione S-transferase (GST) (1.40). These results confirmed that esterase and cytochrome P450 monoxygenase are probably involved in resistance of T. urticae to spirodiclofen.

Charletonia shahriari Saboori, Azimi & Shirdel, 2012 was described based on larvae, ectoparasitic on undetermined cercopids (Hemiptera: Cercopidae) in a wheat field in Tabriz city, East Azarbaijan Province (Saboori et al. 2012), Iran. In this paper, four specimens of the species were collected; ectoparasitic on an orthopteran host (Calliptamus italicus (Linnaeus)) in Gorgan city, Golestan Province and some additional biometric data are provided.

There are 21 genera in the family Neopygmephoridae (Acari: Heterostigmata: Pygmephoroidea) (Khaustov and Mandelshtam 2017) in which many of them are associated with various arthropods including Chilopods, spiders, bees, ants, beetles and termites (Khaustov 2017). One of the neopygmephorid genera is Parapygmephorus encompassing eight species, associated with bees of the families Halictidae, Apidae, Colletidae and Megachilidae, and in one case on a spider wasp, Pompilidae (Fan et al. 2014). These phoretic mites feed on fungi in the nests of their bee hosts and are clinging them by a large and strong single claw on their first tibiotarsus (Cross 1965).
During a sampling of bees and their associate mites in Iran, the mite Parapygmephorus crossi Mahunka, 1974 (Figures 1A and 1B) recovered from Halictus (Halictus) resurgens Nurse, 1903 (Halictidae) (Figure 1C and 1D) in city park (Park Jangali) close to Yasouj, capital of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad province (Southwestern Iran) on 7 Septamber 2014. Twelve specimens of phoretic mites were found attaching to body hairs of a bee host. The materials are deposited in the Acarological Collection, Department of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
Mite Parapygmephorus crossi was collected and described for the first time on Halictus holtzi (Schultz) from Afghanistan (Mahunka 1974) characterized by setae ps1 longer than ps2 and setae ps3 distinctly shorter than ps2. So, it is first record of this species in Iran and second record in the world including Palaearctic. Previously, three other species of the Parapygmephorus were collected from Iran: P. khorasanicus Hajiqanbar and Khaustov, 2011 on Halictus quadricinctus (Fabricius); P. delyorum Mahunka, 1980 on an unidentified halictid bee; and P. magnisetosus Khaustov and Zaloznaya, 2011 on Amigella sp. and Eucera sp. (Apidae), Halictus spp. and Lasioglossum sp. (Halictidae), and Lithurgus chrysurus Fonscolombe, 1834 (Megachilidae) (Hajiqanbar et al. 2011a; Hajiqanbar et al. 2011b; Hajiqanbar and Rakhshani 2011; Loghmani et al. 2014; Sobhi et al. 2017).

Faunal diversity of the oribatid and mesostigmatid mites was investigated in four habitats (woodland, hemy-xerophiticshrubs, degraded steppe and perennial calcareous and oligotrophic grassland) of Saskhori limestone quarry. Mining processes are not yet started and semi-natural ecosystems are still preserved. Fifty one species of oribatidmites and nine morphospecies of mesostigmatid mites were identified. Two species of mesostigmatid mites ZerconmonigenusBłaszak, 1972and TrachytesstammeniHirschmannetZirngiebl-Nicol, 1969are new records for Caucasian fauna and two more - Proprioseiopsismessor(Wainstein, 1960) and Neoseiulus montanus (Wainstein, 1962a)(both Gamasina) are new for Georgia. Highest number of species was recorded on perennial calcareous and oligotrophic grasslands (43), which were followed by forests (37) and shrubs (25). Degraded steppes were extremely poor by soil mite species – only three oribatid species and no mesostigmatans were recorded there. Overall faunal composition indicateshabitat specific anthropogenic disturbance in studied habitats and less disturbed harboring important rare and sensitive species of mites.

To date, no study was designed to detect Ae. pullorum in tick vectors in Iran. In the present study, we collected ticks from Lorestan Province, west of Iran.