Arrenurus (Brevicaudaturus) Smit

Ferradás, Rosso & Beatriz, 2006, New species and records of Arrenurus from the Paraná river, Argentina (Acari: Parasitengona: Arrenuridae), Zootaxa 1208, pp. 25-35 : 29

Arrenurus (Brevicaudaturus) Smit

The subgenus Brevicaudaturus Smit, 1997 was created based fundamentally on the morphology of the males: a dorsal shield; a dorsal furrow; a short and wide cauda with a half incision and the location of dorso­glandularia 1 in a pair of humps. For the females, this last characteristic only is pointed out. This group was originally named " laticodulus ", by Viets (1975) because of affinities between several species from Euro­Asian and Central Amercian areas with A. laticodulus Piersig from Asia and Africa; subsequently, Cook (1980) proposed to include other taxa from South America ( Brazil and Colombia), A. i. imperator , A. i. goliath and A. toriger Viets, 1940 .

Arrenurus (Brevicaudaturus) currently includes nine species from the Indo­Australian region and from the Pacific islands; five species from Africa and three species and a subspecies from the Neotropical region ( Smit, 1997). Although I couldn`t check all the species included in this subgenus, at least in some of them ( A. imperator imperator Lundblad, 1944 ; A. i. goliath Lundblad, 1953 ; A. guatemaltecus Viets, 1975 ; A. neolaticodulus Cook, 1966 ; A. discretus Cook, 1966 ; A. dumazeri Motas, 1932 ; A. lohmanni Piersig, 1898 ; A. laticodulus [Piersig, 1898; Cook, 1967]), the females have a special morphology of the genital field and the position of epimeroglandularia 2 (see Fig. of A. imperator ); I propose that this characteristic should be added those given for the females of the subgenus, with the purpose of defining it somewhat further. It is based upon the characteristic of the genital field, so different at least from that of the American species, that I have not decided to include A. mocovi n. sp. in this subgenus despite the fact that the new species possesses dorsoglandularia 1 in a pair of humps. Placement into a subgenus will have to wait until we know the males of this new taxa.