Onchodellus alpinus (Willmann, 1953)

Pachylaelaps alpinus Willmann, 1953: 459 .

Onchodellus alpinus .— Mašán, 2007: 136; Mašán & Halliday, 2014: 12.

Habitat preference in Iran. Soil, leaf-litter, and honeybee hives.

Provincial distribution in Iran. Guilan, Mazandaran, and Tehran (Rahmani et al., 2006, published as Pachylaelaps alpinus Willmann, 1953; Ahangaran et al., 2012; Mojahed et al., 2017).

World distribution. Asia (Iran) (Mojahed et al., 2017), Europe (Central Europe, Alps area, Austria, Finland, and Slovakia) (Karg, 1971, 1993; Mašán, 2007; Mašán & Mihál, 2009; Mašán & Halliday, 2014; Huhta, 2016).

Notes. Ahangaran et al. (2012) reported a species, namely Onchodellus cf. alpinus, based on insufficient description and figures of female specimens, in which all the mentioned morphological characteristics were similar to O. alpinus based on the description prepared by Mašán (2007), but they did not consider any differences between these two species. Therefore, here we considered it as O. alpinus . They found it at the altitude of 1,410 m a.s.l. This euryhygrophilous edaphic detriticole mite has a wide ecological plasticity and can be found in both woodland and non-woodland landscapes, but shows obvious preference for deciduous forest habitats mostly with broad-leaved trees (Mašán, 2007; Mašán & Mihál, 2009). Also, it was found in sea shore soil, meadows, dry meadows, compost, moss, detritus, and dung (Karg, 1993; Huhta et al., 2010). Although Costa (1971) found Onchodellus alpinus in nests of a mole-rat species and other sites, at the altitude of 1,600 m a.s.l., Mašán & Halliday (2014) considered it as Onchodellus sp., not O. alpinus .