Neoseiulus longispinosus (Evans)

Typhlodromus longispinosus Evans, 1952: 413; Evans, 1953: 465; Womersley, 1954: 177; Ehara, 1958: 55.

Typhlodromus (Amblyseius) longispinosus, Chant, 1959: 74 .

Amblyseius longispinosus, Corpuz and Rimando, 1966: 129; Schicha, 1975: 103.

Neoseiulus longispinosus, Moraes et al., 2000: 245 .

This species was already mentioned from Guadeloupe and other Islands of the French Antilles (Moraes et al., 2000) but only in very few localities on various host plants. It is distributed in many countries of the world, mainly in tropical areas.

The biology of this species has been studied for pest control purposes including side effects of acaricides (Bin Ibrahim and Tan, 2000). The activity, feeding, development, predation, cannibalism, intra-guild predation and behaviour have been extensively studied by several authors (Schausberger and Croft, 1999a, b; Croft et al., 1999a, b; Schausberger and Croft, 2000 a, b; Blackwood et al., 2001).

Previous Records — French Antilles (Guadeloupe, Les Saintes, Marie-Galante, Martinique, Saint-BarthØlØmy) (Moraes et al., 2000), Australia, China, Egypt, Hawaii, Hong-Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Taïwan, Thailand (Moraes et al., 2004b).

Specimens examined — Guadeloupe, Basse- Terre, Vieux-Habitants, Station Le Bouchu du CIRAD, 16°03’N, 61°45’W, alt. 21 m, 14 ♀ and 1 ♂ on Neonotonia wightii and Tridax procumbens within an experimental citrus crop, Mailloux coll., April to December 2008 ; Basse-Terre, Petit-Bourg, Domaine Duclos de l’INRA Antilles-Guyane, 16°12’N, 61°39’W, alt. 85 m, 1 ♂ on Vigna sp., Kreiter coll., 21 December 2008 .

Remarks — the measurements and description of the specimens collected fit very well those given by Moraes et al. (2000).