Neocypholaelaps indicus Evans, 1963

Masan, Peter, 2017, A revision of the family Ameroseiidae (Acari, Mesostigmata), with some data on Slovak fauna, ZooKeys 704, pp. 1-228 : 1

Neocypholaelaps indicus Evans, 1963

Neocypholaelaps indica Evans, 1963a: 217.

Neocypholaelaps indica . - Teng and Pan 1964: 772; Mo 1971: 97; Mo 1972: 15; Treat 1975: 116; Baker and Delfinado-Baker 1985: 232; Haitlinger 1987a: 365; Verma and Singh 1999: 51; Ma and Lin 2006: 241; Moraes and Narita 2010: 43; Fan and Jiang 2014: 248.

Neocypholaelaps ewae Haitlinger, 1987a: 363. Syn. n.

Neocypholae lapsindica (sic). - Lin et al. 2007: 128.

Neocypholaelaps ewae . - Ho et. al. 2010: 91; Moraes and Narita 2010: 42.

Hattena ewae . - Narita et al. 2013a: 13; Klimov et al. 2016.

Afrocypholaelaps ewae . - Klimov et al. 2016.

Type depository.

Of Neocypholaelaps indica - British Museum (Natural History), London, United Kingdom; of Neocypholaelaps ewae - Museum of Natural History, Wrocław University, Poland.

Type locality and habitat.

Of Neocypholaelaps indica - Sri Lanka (as Ceylon), on Indian honeybee, Apis cerana indica (as Apis indica ) ( Hymenoptera ); of Neocypholaelaps ewae - Vietnam, Danang, on unidentified butterfly ( Lepidoptera ).

Comparative material.

Vietnam: 1 ♀, 1 ♂, 1 protonymph (MPUV: MP-1290, syntypes) - 20. 2. 1985, Danang, Lepidoptera (niebieski motyl) (labelled Neocypholaelaps ewae , holotyp) .

Remarks.

The original description and illustrations of Neocypholaelaps ewae are not detailed and consistent enough to allow it to be correctly recognised and classified in a genus with any confidence. Therefore, Narita et al. (2013a) and Klimov et al. (2016) transferred this species to Hattena , without providing any explanation for the new systematic position. The number of 19 pairs of dorsal shield setae stated for the adults (and developmental stages, protonymph and deutonymph) by Haitlinger (1987a) perfectly fits to the setal patterns of Hattena . But many other characters resembling those in Neocypholaelaps , especially Neocypholaelaps indicus : large subrectangular epigynal shield with slight posterior expansion, dorsal setae smooth (except j1), anal shield with only three circum-anal setae in adults of both sexes, cheliceral spermatodactyl thin and long, J2 of male conspicuously thickened and lengthened, protonymph with S4 thickened and spur-like. My examination of the type specimens of N. ewae has shown that the statement on decreased complement of the dorsal setae is misinterpreted and in error. I could found all 29 pairs of setae on the dorsal shield in examined adults of both sexes. Using the key to species of Neocypholaelaps by Evans (1963a) and observing the type female from Vietnam, it can be identified as N. indicus by the following characteristics: dorsal shield has 29 pairs of setae (entry 1), most of which setiform and at the most weakly serrated (entry 2), all leg ambulacra with two claws and genu and tibia III each with two anterolateral setae (entry 3), Z5 short (about 20 μm long in type female), dorsal setae of tibia I smooth, and anal shield approximately 104 × 135 μm in size in type female (entry 4). Accordingly, a new synonymy is established between N. ewae and N. indicus in the present study.