Amblyseius passiflorae Blommers, 1974

Kreiter, Serge & Abo-Shnaf, Reham I. A., 2020, Phytoseiid mites of Rodrigues Island (Acari: Mesostigmata), Acarologia 60 (2), pp. 449-468 : 457

Amblyseius passiflorae Blommers

Amblyseius passiflorae Blommers 1974: 145 ; Moraes et al. 1986: 27, 2004: 46; Denmark & Muma 1989: 49; Chant & McMurty 2004: 210, 2007: 80.

This species belongs to the largoensis species group, and the arcus species subgroup as the spermatheca is dish-, cup- or bell-shaped and to the vasiformis species complex as seta Z5 is very long. Its biology is totally unknown.

This species was only known from the type series (five females and one male) (Blommers 1974). The original description was rather complete, providing comprehensive information on female and male morphology, and Ferragut and Baumann (2019) had added information on dorsal adenotaxy and poroidotaxy. This species was collected for the latter authors and thus already recorded from Mauritius, but of course not from Rodrigues.

World distribution: Madagascar, Mauritius.

Specimens examined: 50 ♀♀ and 15 ♂♂ in total. Quatre-Vents (293 m aasl, lat. 19°44 ′ 12 ″ S, long. 63°27 ′ 19 ″ E), 8 ♀♀ and 9 ♂♂ on Mangifera indica L. ( Anacardiaceae ), 1 ♂ on Cordia dichotoma Forster (Boraginaceae) and 1 ♀ and 1 ♂ on Hibiscus rosa-sinensis L. ( Malvaceae ), 12/XI/2018; Samy (201 m aasl, lat. 19°42 ′ 28 ″ S, long. 63°24 ′ 24 ″ E), 1 ♀ on Citrus limon (L.) Burman ( Rutaceae ), 12/XI/2018; Mont Lubin (346 m aasl, lat. 19°42 ′ 21 ″ S, long. 63°26 ′ 40 ″ E), 8 ♀♀ on Hibiscus boryanus de Candolle (Malvaceae) , 10 ♀♀ and 1 ♂ on Clematis mauritiana Lamarck (Ranunculaceae) , 5 ♀♀ on Psidium guajava L. ( Myrtaceae ), 3 ♀♀ on Litsea glutinosa (Loureiro) Robinson (Lauraceae) , 1 ♀ on Urena lobata L. ( Malvaceae ), 1 ♀ on Rubus rosifolius Smith (Rosaceae) , 9 ♀♀ and 3 ♂♂ on Litsea monopetala (Roxburgh) Person (Lauraceae) , 1 ♀ on Syngonium podophyllum Schott (Araceae) and 2 ♀♀ on Terminalia arjuna (Roxburgh) Wight et Arnott (Combretaceae) , 15/XI/2018.

Remarks: this species was reported before by Ferragut and Baumann (2019). Morphological and morphometric characters and all measurements of our specimens fit well with measurements in Blommers (1974) and Ferragut and Baumann (2019). This is one of the three more numerous species collected during this study and probably one of the more common species in the island, together with A. largoensis and Euseius ovaloides .