Neoseiulus teke (Pritchard & Baker)

Kreiter, Serge, Payet, Rose-My, Mouigni, Hadji, Douin, Martial, Tixier, Marie-Stéphane & Azali, Hamza Abdou, 2021, New records of phytoseiid mites (Acari: Mesostigmata) of Grande Comore Island (Comoros Archipelago), Acarologia 61 (2), pp. 241-273 : 243

Neoseiulus teke (Pritchard & Baker)

Amblyseius (Amblyseius) teke Pritchard & Baker 1962: 239 .

Amblyseius teke, Meyer & Rodrigues 1966: 30 , Moraes et al. 1989a: 83, 1989b: 97.

Neoseiulus teke, Moraes et al. 1986: 98, 2004b: 147 , Chant & McMurtry 2003a: 37, 2007: 31. Amblyseius (Amblyseius) bibens Blommers 1973: 111 (synonymy according to Ueckermann & Loots 1988).

Neoseiulus teke belongs to the barkeri species group and the womersleyi species subgroup ( Chant and McMurtry 2003a). This species is found in sub­Saharan Africa often associated with Mononychellus tanajoa (Bondar) , the cassava green mite (CGM) . It has been studied for its potential as BCA against the CGM. Nwilene and Nachman (1996) studied its reproduction characteristics on M. tanajoa . It was more efficient than I. degenerans , but seems not efficient enough in field conditions ( Nwilene and Nachman 1996).

World distribution: Burundi, DR Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mayotte Island, Mohéli Island, Mozambique, La Réunion Island, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe.

Specimens examined: three specimens (2 ♀♀ and 1 imm.) collected during this study. Moroni (171 m aasl, lat. 11°40 ′ 47 ″ S, long. 43°16 ′ 27 ″ E), 1 ♀ on Bidens pilosa L. ( Asteraceae ), 9/XII/2018 ; Mdé, INRAPE (51 m aasl, lat. 11°44 ′ 12 ″ S, long. 43°14 ′ 59 ″ E), 1 ♀ on Psidium guajava L. ( Myrtaceae ) and 1 imm. on Carica papaya L. ( Caricaceae ), 11/XII/2018.

Remarks: measurements of morphological characters of N. teke female and male specimens from Grande Comore Island are very close to measurements of specimens from neighbouring countries, especially from specimens from La Réunion ( Quilici et al. 2000 ; Kreiter et al. 2020d), Mayotte (Kreiter et al. 2020a) and Mohéli ( Kreiter et al. 2021b) Islands and from specimens of various countries in Africa, except for the holotype ( Zannou et al. 2006) and specimens from South Africa which are larger ( van der Merwe 1965).