Amblyseius largoensis (Muma)

Kreiter, Serge, Payet, Rose-My & Azali, Hamza Abdou, 2021, Phytoseiid mites (Acari: Mesostigmata) of Anjouan Island (Comoros Archipelago), Acarologia 61 (1), pp. 62-83 : 69-70

Amblyseius largoensis (Muma)

Amblyseiopsis largoensis Muma 1955: 266 .

Typhlodromus (Amblyseius) largoensis, Chant 1959: 96 .

Amblyseius (Amblyseialus) largoensis, Muma 1961: 287 .

Typhlodromus largoensis, Hirschmann 1962: 2 .

Amblyseius (Amblyseius) largoensis, Ehara 1966: 22 .

Amblyseius largoensis, Swirski & Golan 1967: 225 ; Moraes et al. 1986: 17, 2004b: 33 ; Chant

& McMurtry 2004: 208, 2007: 78.

Amblyseius magnolia Muma 1961: 289 (synonymy by Denmark & Evans 2011).

Amblyseius sakalava Blommers 1976: 96 (synonymy by Ueckermann & Loots 1988).

Amblyseius amtalaensis Gupta 1977: 53 (synonymy by Gupta 1986).

Amblyseius largoensis belongs to the largoensis species group and to the largoensis species subgroup. It is widespread in all tropical and subtropical regions of the world and was the most abundant species collected by Moraes et al. (2000) in French Caribbean Islands and as a potential BCA of Raoiella indica Hirst in La Réunion Island ( Moraes et al. 2012). Using morphometric analyses of 36 characters, molecular analyses and crossing tests, Navia et al. .

(2014) studied specimens collected in Brazil, La Réunion Island and Trinidad and Tobago to determine whether A. largoensis populations from different geographic origins belong to the same taxonomic entity. Though differences in the lengths of some setae were observed,

molecular analyses and crossing experiments indicated that populations from Indian Ocean and America were conspecific. This species was previously recorded from Mauritius Island by

Ferragut and Baumann (2019) and Kreiter and Abo­Shnaf (2020b), from Rodrigues Island by

Kreiter and Abo­Shnaf (2020a) and from Mayotte by Kreiter et al. (2020a) based on males and females records.

World distribution: this species is widely distributed in the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, America, Asia and the Pacific Islands.

Specimens examined: a single ♂ specimen collected during this study. Dindi, inside the village (567 m aasl, 12°12 ′ 56 ″ S, 44°27 ′ 02 ″ E), 1 ♂ on Manihot esculenta Crantz

(Euphorbiaceae), 29/XI/2018.

Remarks: morphological and morphometric characters and all measurements of the

Anjouan specimen fit well with those given in Zannou et al. (2007) for specimens from Africa,

Navia et al. . (2014) for specimens from Brazil, La Réunion and Trinidad & Tobago, by Ferragut and Baumann (2019) and Kreiter and Abo­Shnaf (2020b) for specimens from Mauritius Island,

by Kreiter and Abo­Shnaf (2020a) for specimens from Rodrigues Island and by Kreiter et al.

(2020a) for specimens from Mayotte Island. Schicha (1981c) has given a detailed description of A. herbicolus (under the name A. deleoni Muma and Denmark). He states that, whereas the male of A. deleoni has been described from Florida by Muma and Denmark (1970), it has not been found on leaf samples taken regularly over 5 years from citrus trees on the central coast of New South Wales ( Schicha 1981c). Similarly, Blommers (1976) failed to observe males in the mass rearing of this species in Madagascar. Ferragut and Baumann (2019), Kreiter et al. (2020d) and Kreiter and Abo­Shnaf (2020b) never recorded a single male among several hundred specimens collected in La Réunion and Mauritius, respectively. Occurrence of males in natural populations of A. herbicolus , a thelytokous species after several author, is questioned.

Amblyseius largoensis is a species also very common in the Islands of Indian Ocean very often recorded in several Islands ( Kreiter and Abo­Shnaf 2020a, b; Kreiter et al. 2020a, b). We consequently consider that the single specimen collected in Anjouan which setae length is in accordance with description of the male of that species, is a male of A. largoensis . But as females were not collected in the same time, a doubt is still existing on the occurrence of that species, which must be confirmed in further more surveys in more locations.