Cheladonta Lipovsky, Crossley and Loomis, 1955

Stekolnikov, Alexandr & Daniel, Milan, 2012, 3216, Zootaxa 3216, pp. 1-104 : 82

Genus Cheladonta Lipovsky, Crossley and Loomis, 1955

Cheladonta Lipovsky et al., 1955: 137 ; Lakshana 1969: 135; Kolebinova 1992: 145; Kudryashova 1979: 78; 1998: 261.

Type species: Cheladonta micheneri Lipovsky, Crossley and Loomis, 1955 , by original designation.

Diagnosis. SIF = 4B-N(B)-(3–12)-2110.0000. Eyes 2 + 2, 1 + 1 or absent. Scutum trapezoidal, with straight, concave or slightly convex posterior margin. Sensilla clavate to globose, covered with setules. Two pairs of humeral setae.

Hosts. Small mammals (mainly rodents).

Distribution. South Holarctic (up to 50° N) and Indomalayan zone.

Species included. Cheladonta bicoxalae Wen, Zhou, Chen, Wang and Zhang, 1984 , Ch. brevipalpis ( André, 1946) , Ch. costulata ( Willmann, 1952) (= Cheladonta styriaca Kepka, 1958 ), Ch. crossi Lipovsky, Crossley and Loomis, 1955 , Ch. deqinensis Yu, Hu and Zhang, 1983 , Ch. firdousii Kudryashova, Neronov and Farang-Azad, 1978 , Ch. flava ( Schluger, 1955) , Ch. globosea Yang, 1992 , Ch. ikaoensis Sasa, Sawada, Kano, Hayashi and Kumada, 1951 , Ch. iraniensis Vercammen-Grandjean, Rohde and Mesghali, 1970 , Ch. lushchekinae Kudryashova, 1998 , Ch. micheneri Lipovsky, Crossley and Loomis, 1955 , Ch. neda Schluger, Grokhovskaya , Dang-Van-Ngu, Nguen-Xuan-Hoe and Do-Kinh-Tung, 1960, Ch. ouachitensis Lipovsky, Crossley and Loomis, 1955 , Ch. pannonica ( Kepka, 1956) .

Remarks. Following Kudryashova (1998), we do not support including the genus Susa Audy and Nadchatram, 1960 into Cheladonta as a subgenus ( Lakshana 1969; Nadchatram & Dohany 1974); therefore, Cheladonta is considered here in sensu stricto.

Almost in all cases, collections of the genus Cheladonta include engorged mites only, i.e. an unfavorable condition for taxonomic examination. In such specimens, the scutum is usually deformed and characters of gnathosoma are quite often indistinguishable. For this reason, revision of this genus is confronted with difficulties. In Turkey, we found several forms of Cheladonta , clearly different in some quantitative characters, but their exact identification seems impossible, because of the poor condition of the specimens. Such forms are described below as Cheladonta sp. 1 and sp. 2.