Mictognathus Newell, 1984

Bartsch, Ilse, 2015, The genital area of Halacaridae (Acari), life stages and development of morphological characters and implication on the classification, Zootaxa 3919 (2), pp. 201-259 : 224

Mictognathus Newell, 1984

(Fig. 65 and 66)

Type species. Mictognathus werthelloides Newell, 1984 .

Adults. GP and AP fused in both female and male. Female GA with three (to four) pairs of pgs but no sgs. Ovipositor rather short, at rest slightly extending beyond GO. With three pairs of internal gac, anterior pair just anterior to level of mid-GO (Fig. 65). Genital spines short and spiniform, their number not known. Male GO somewhat smaller and distance to posterior margin of GP larger than in female. GP with about 13–28 pairs of slender pgs, arranged rather densely around GO. Each genital sclerite with three short, seti- or spur-like sgs. Two pairs of internal gac in posterior half of GO ( Newell 1984: fig. 592). According to Newell (1984: figs 593, 596), AE of adults with epimeral pore-like structure, but epimeral pores not mentioned by Bartsch (1992a) and Otto (2001).

Juveniles. At present only deutonymphal instar known. GP separated from AP; GP with two pairs of gac and one pair (Fig. 66; Bartsch 1992: p.89), one and a half or two pairs ( Newell 1984: fig. 594, p. 215) of pgs in posterior part of GP; sgs lacking.

Remarks. The three species known are from the southern hemisphere ( Bartsch 2009a).

According to Newell (1984: p 215) the GP of the deutonymph bears two pairs of pgs, but according to the illustration ( Newell 1984: fig. 594) there is one seta in one half and two in the other. The two setae are in an unusual position, namely almost adjacent, whereas in the majority of halacarid nymphs with two pairs of perigenital setae these are widely separated (cf. Figs 4, 22, 35). The presence of two pairs of pgs is expected to represent an anomaly. Both deutonymphs studied by the author have a single pair of pgs, one of the deutonymphs is from about 57°S, 27°W, the other from 65°S, 64°W.