Proprioseiopsis dacus ( Wainstein 1973 )

Tsolakis, Haralabos & Ragusa, Salvatore, 2020, New records of phytoseiid mites from Italy, with description of a new species and a redescription of other two (Parasitiformes, Phytoseiidae), Acarologia 60 (4), pp. 735-752 : 740

Proprioseiopsis dacus ( Wainstein 1973)

Amblyseius (Amblyseius) dacus Wainstein (1973) (original designation)

Amblyseius dacus Gilyarov et al. (1977)

Proprioseiopsis (Amblyseiulus) dacus Karg (1989)

Specimens examined — Two females at Ficuzza (Palermo), (37°53 ′ 06.9 ″ N, 13°23 ′ 33.2 ″

E, m 732 a.s.l.), on Rubus spp. (Rosaceae) 24 Oct. 1980.

Remarks — The species has been reported up to now only for Moldova ( Wainstein 1973)

and Iran ( Faraji et al. 2007). The latter authors redescribed the species from one female collected on Citrus leaves. They reported some discordances with the original description regardings the lengths of various dorsal setae and the presence of a tooth on the movable digit that Wainstein (1973) considered edentate. In both our specimens a tooth is present on the movable digit, but in one of them it is vestigial. Wainstein described the species from only one specimen and probably he did not notice it or it was actually absent in the holotype. In the original description more than three teeth were reported on fixed digit, while Faraji et al.

(2007) reported three teeth. On both our specimens we found four teeth (three between pilus dentilis and apical tooth and one beyond pilus dentilis). Waintein (1973) reported “seven pairs of small and large pores” on dorsal shield, while ( Faraji et al. 2007) reported ten small visible pores. Evidently, the latter authors did not distinguish between solenostomes and poroids. In our specimens we verified the presence of seven small, but crataeriform solenostomes gd (1,

gd2, gd4, gd5, gd6, gd8, gd9). Our measurements fit well with Waintein’s original description,

except for the setae j1 and z2, but also with Faraji’s and co-authors’ redescription (see Table 2).

Proprioseiopsis dacus is reported in Italy for the first time.