Myrmozercon aequalis ( Banks, 1916 )

Joharchi, Omid, Babaeian, Esmaeil & Seeman, Owen D., 2015, Review of the genus Myrmozercon Berlese (Acari: Laelapidae), with description of a new species from Iran, Zootaxa 3955 (4), pp. 549-560 : 557

Myrmozercon aequalis ( Banks, 1916)

Myrmonyssus aequalis Banks, 1916: 227 .

Diagnosis. Body length 850; dorsal shield not truncate, highly hypertrichous. Legs long, legs I about as long as body. Host: Iridomyrmex gracilis (Lowne) .

Remarks. Little is discernable from the original description, but M. scutellatus and M. crinitis share the features of dorsal hypotrichy and long legs. Walter (2003) separated M. aequalis and M. scutellatus on differences in body size, the length of the dorsal setae, and the shape of the female genital shield. Males of M. aequalis also have the unique feature within Myrmozercon of ventral spurs on the femur, genu and tibia of leg II. The host genus of M. aequalis and M. scutellatus is Iridomyrmex . Myrmozercon crinitis was collected from Pheidole , and differs in the shape of the idiosoma (tapering in M. crinitis , rounded in M. aequalis and M. scutellatus ) and by lacking spurs on leg II of the male.