Amblyseius fernandezi Chant and Baker

Kreiter, S., Mailloux, J., Tixier, M. - S., Le Bellec, F., Douin, M., Guichou, S. & Etienne, J., 2013, New Phytoseiid Mites Of The French West Indies, With Description Of A New Species, And New Records (Acari: Mesostigmata), Acarologia 53 (3), pp. 285-303 : 290

Amblyseius fernandezi Chant and Baker

Amblyseius fernandezi Chant and Baker, 1965: 19 .

The biology of this species, found in Central America, is unknown.

Previous Records — Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica ( Chant and Baker, 1965; Denmark et al., 1999; Moraes et al., 2004b; Castro et al., 2010), El Salvador, Mexico and Venezuela ( Castro et al., 2010).

Specimens examined — Guadeloupe, Basse- Terre , RiviŁre Corossol, Cascade des Ecrevisses, 16°11’N, 61°39’W, alt. 177 m, 1 ♀ on an unknown Melastomataceae, Kreiter coll., 26 Dec. 2008 .

Remarks — this is the first record of this species in the West Indies. The measurements of the single specimen collected fit rather well the measurements given by Denmark and Muma (1989). All the setae are however slightly longer, but at maximum less than 10 % of variation, which is less than the threshold of 20 % around the mean defined by Tixier (2012) to characterize intraspecific variations.

The measurements of the adult female presently found are as follow: dorsal shield smooth, dorsal shield length 368, width 288, 1 solenostome visible (gd 9), j1 30, j3 41, j4 3, j5 5, j6 5, J2 5, J5 8, z2 15, z4 12, z5 3, Z1 10, Z4 112, Z5 190, s4 90, S2 10, S4 10, S5 10, r3 12, R1 10, all setae smooth, st1-st1 65, st2-st2 75, st1-st3 63, posterior margin of the sternal shield concave, metapodal 1 length 25, width 3, metapodal 20 length 10, width 2, ventrianal shield 115 long, 78 wide at level of anterior corners and 78 wide at level of anus, 4 poroids around the ventrianal shield and genital shield, JV5 80, spermatheca 17 long and 5 width, SgeI 40, SgeII 40, SgeIII 50, StiIII 35, SgeIV 75, StiIV 62, StIV 75, macrosetae whip-like, fixed digit of chelicerae 37, mobile digit of chelicerae 40, 13-14 denticles on fixed digit and 4 on mobile digit.