Copriphis Berlese, 1910

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 : 39-42

Genus Copriphis Berlese

Copriphis Berlese, 1910: 261 . Type species Iphis pterophilus Berlese, 1882a , by original designation. Diagnosis (adults). Dorsal idiosoma ( Fig. 34). Idiosoma dorso-ventrally flattened. Dorsal shield entire, suboval to subcircular, smooth or weakly and irregularly reticulate, completely covering dorsal idiosoma, never expanded ventrally, with simple flat vertex, fused with narrow ventral sections of peritrematal shields. Dorsal shield with 30 pairs of setae, dorsal setae often heterogeneous in length and form; marginal setae longest, often strongly elongate, setiform or spatulate; medial setae shortest, often very short to minute. Vertical setae j1 well developed, thickened, lanceolate, positioned dorsally on vertex. Setae z1 very minute and stout, scarcely discernible, positioned marginally on vertex. Sexual dimorphism of dorsal chaetotaxy absent.

Ventral idiosoma ( Fig. 35). Presternal platelets present, small, paired, weakly sclerotised and transversely striate. Sternal shield well sclerotised, bearing three pairs of setae and two pairs of pores; first pair of pores slit-like, oriented transversely, second pair of pores oval. Endopodal platelets II–III completely fused to sternal shield. Endopodal platelets III–IV fused to metasternal platelets, metasternal seta st4 and adjacent pore situated on relatively large plate abutting anterolateral margin of epigynal shield. Epigynal shield relatively wide, with a pair of genital setae situated close to posterior margin; genital pores inserted in soft integument. Opisthogastric integument with two pairs of post-genital sclerites and a pair of metapodal platelets, well separated from peritrematal shields. Anal shield subtriangular, with widely rounded anterior margin and three circum-anal setae; post-anal seta thicker and longer than adanal setae. Exopodal platelets I–III absent, exopodals IV present, narrow and curved. Peritrematal shields well developed along the whole peritreme, with anterior section fused to dorsal shield to form a narrow arch below the vertex; post-stigmatic section of peritrematal shields greatly enlarged beyond posterior margin of coxae IV, with hypertrophied post-stigmatic pore usually situated close to posterior margin of the shields; peritremes long, anterior ends reaching to setae z1. Ventral setae uniform in length, smooth and setiform, or some ventral setae modified in shape, usually those on coxae and sternal region (st2–st5), spur-like to peg-like. Opisthogastric soft integument simply striated, with ten pairs of setae in female, nine pairs in male. Male with separate sterno-genital and anal shields; posterior margin of sterno-genital shield usually adjacent to small post-sternogenital platelet, this platelet without setae or pores ( Fig. 45).

Spermathecal apparatus. All components of spermathecal apparatus obscure and scarcely observable. Tubuli annulati long and thin, poorly sclerotised and terminated in a nozzle-like structure; sacculus foemineus unsclerotised.

Gnathosoma . Palptarsus with two closely associated macroeupathidia, palptrochanter with bifid anteroventral seta ( Fig. 41). Cheliceral segments elongate and thin ( Fig. 49), cheliceral digits slender, movable digit with two small subdistal teeth, fixed digit with three small teeth ( Fig. 36). Spermatodactyl short and simple, tube-like ( Fig. 37). Epistome with elongate central projection and subtriangular base, delicately serrate, without wing-like laterobasal elements ( Fig. 44).

Legs. Setation of legs I-II-III-IV: coxae 2-2-2-1, trochanters 6-5-5-5, femora 13-11-6-6, genua 11-11-8-7 and tibiae 11-10-7-7 (see Table 3). Male leg segments not spurred.

Notes on the genus. The genus Copriphis was only inadequately and very briefly described by Berlese (1910), and its type species Iphis pterophilus has never been described in detail. As a result, the placement of many species of Copriphis and Eviphis has been ambiguous. Many authors have considered Copriphis as a synonym of Eviphis , and placed Berlese's original species of Copriphis in either Eviphis or Pelethiphis . We can now clarify the distinction between Eviphis and Copriphis on the basis of re-descriptions of their type species. We follow Karg (1976), Evans & Till (1979) and Krantz & Ainscough (1990) in considering Eviphis and Copriphis as separate genera, using the characters presented in Table 5. All species of Eviphis are now transferred into Copriphis , with the exception of the type species Eviphis ostrinus .

The genus Copriphis as defined in this way constitutes the largest genus of Eviphididae . It currently comprises about 35 recognisable species mainly distributed in tropical and subtropical zones of Africa and Asia ( Canestrini & Canestrini 1882b; Berlese 1882 c, 1910, 1921; Oudemans 1910, 1915; Vitzthum 1926; Ryke & Meyer 1957; Spies & Ryke 1965; Wen 1965; Shoemake & Krantz 1966; Petrova & Taskaeva 1968; Bhattacharyya 1971, 1992; Costa 1974, 1975; Davydova 1979; Ma & Piao 1981; Ishikawa 1984; Zhou et al. 1990a, 1990b; Yang & Gu 1991; Arutunian 1992b; Sun et al. 1992; Ramaraju & Mohanasundaram 1996; Tao & Gu 1996; Takaku 1997; Chen & Li 1998; Li et al. 2000). They are usually found in close associations with various coprophagous beetles, mainly Scarabaeoidea.

Two recognisable species are reported from Europe and only one from Slovakia. Some authors have placed other European species in the genus Copriphis , either explicitly or through the synonymy of other genera, namely Eumaeus pyrobolus Koch 1839 ( Germany) , Uroiphis scabratus Berlese 1903 ( Italy) , Uroiphis striatus Berlese 1903 ( Italy) , Copriphis orbinellus Schweizer 1949 ( Switzerland) , and Copriphis puer Berlese 1910 ( Spain) . We consider all of these species as either incertae sedis or belonging to other genera or families (see taxonomic summary later in this paper).