Evimirus Karg, 1963

Mašán, Peter & Halliday, Bruce, 2010, Review of the European genera of Eviphididae (Acari: Mesostigmata) and the species occurring in Slovakia 2585, Zootaxa 2585, pp. 1-122 : 51-52

Genus Evimirus Karg

Evimirus Karg, 1963: 270 . Type species Eviphis uropodinus Berlese, 1903 , by original designation.

Diagnosis (adults). Dorsal idiosoma. Idiosoma highly domed, almost hemispherical. Dorsal shield entire, subcircular, smooth, without sculpture, completely covering dorsal idiosoma, never expanded ventrally, without distinct vertex. Dorsal shield with 30 pairs of simple, short, needle-like setae; all dorsal setae subequal in length; vertical setae j1 minute, inserted dorsally. Sexual dimorphism of dorsal chaetotaxy absent. Some dorsal pore-like structures hypertrophied, suboval.

Ventral idiosoma. Presternal platelets free from sternal shield, small, weakly sclerotised, usually transversely striate. Sternal shield well sclerotised, ornamented with a pattern of transverse lines, bearing three pairs of setae and two pairs of pores; pores slightly hypertrophied, slit-like, oriented transversely. Endopodal platelets II–III completely fused to sternal shield. Endopodal platelets III–IV usually free in soft integument, or fused to metasternal platelets, metasternal seta st4 and adjacent pore may be situated on small metasternal platelet or larger metasternal-endopodal complex. Epigynal shield strongly narrowed anteriorly, vase-shaped, often widened posteriorly, with a pair of posteriorly placed genital setae; genital pores in soft integument. Post-genital sclerites absent. Anal shield subtriangular, with widely rounded anterior margin and three subequal setae. Exopodal platelets II–IV present, well developed. Metapodal platelets usually present, free in soft integument. Peritrematal shields well developed along the whole peritreme; post-stigmatic section of peritrematal shields greatly enlarged behind coxae IV; hypertrophied post-stigmatic pore situated about half-way between stigma and posterior end of peritrematal shield, or absent; peritremes long, anterior ends reaching beyond coxae I. All ventral idiosomal setae short and smooth. Soft opisthogastric integument reduced to narrow strips between epigynal, peritrematal and anal shields. Male with separate sterno-genital, ventral and anal shields; ventral shield usually large, subrectangular, with anterior margin closely adjacent to sterno-genital shield, bearing one pair of setae; ventral shield rarely fragmented into two small shields without setae.

Gnathosoma . Palptarsus with two closely associated macroeupathidia. Cheliceral segments long and thin, cheliceral digits slender, movable digit with two small subdistal teeth, fixed digit with subdistal ampulla-like sensillum. Spermatodactyl simple, tube-like. Epistome with elongated central projection and subtriangular base, delicately pilose, without wing-like laterobasal elements.

Legs. Setation of legs I-II-III-IV: coxae 2-2-2-1, trochanters 5-5-5-5, femora 12-11-6-6, genua 10-9-7-7 and tibiae 9-8-7-7 (see Table 3).

Notes on the genus. Karg (1963) erected this genus to accommodate the type species Eviphis uropodinus . He based the diagnosis of the new genus especially on the possession of a three-tined palp tarsal claw, characters of the hypostome and chelicera, the dorsal chaetotaxy, and the peculiar shape and positions of the ventral shields. Shoemake (1970) examined material of Evimirus uropodinus , including three specimens identified by Karg, and was unable to find a specimen with a three-tined apotele. He therefore considered Evimirus to be a synonym of Eviphis , and this decision was followed by some other authors (e.g. Bregetova 1977a ). We regard these two genera as separate, despite the very variable arrangement of ventral shields and platelets among the known representatives of Evimirus . The characters that separate the two genera are detailed in Table 7. Undoubtedly, the genus Evimirus needs a thorough revision.

There are seven known species in the genus, mostly from tropical and subtropical areas of Argentina ( Karg 1979), Java and India ( Berlese 1913a; Bhattacharyya 1966, 1971), New Caledonia ( Karg 1996), New Guinea ( Hirschmann 1975), Saint Lucia ( Karg 1989), and Australia (Halliday, personal observations). The only species that occurs in Europe, E. uropodinus ( Berlese 1903) , is reported from Italy ( Berlese 1903), Germany ( Karg 1965), the United States ( Shoemake 1970), Ukraine (Crimean Peninsula) and Georgia ( Bregetova 1977a ), Great Britain ( Evans & Till 1979), Japan ( Ishikawa 1979; Nakamura et al. 2006), China ( Ma et al. 1999), South Korea ( Kaczmarek & Lee 2000), Iran ( Pakyari et al. 2006) and Croatia ( Kaczmarek et al. 2009). Evimirus convergens ( Berlese 1913a) was wrongly reported from Italy by Bhattacharyya (1971), and this incorrect record from South Europe was repeated by Karg (1989, 1993).