Oligonychus Berlese, 1886.

Mushtaq, Hafiz Muhammad Saqib, Alatawi, Fahad Jaber, Kamran, Muhammad & Flechtmann, Carlos Holger Wenzel, 2021, The genus Oligonychus Berlese (Acari, Prostigmata, Tetranychidae): taxonomic assessment and a key to subgenera, species groups, and subgroups, ZooKeys 1079, pp. 89-127 : 89

Genus Oligonychus Berlese, 1886.

Oligonychus Berlese, 1886: 24, Pritchard and Baker 1955: 270, Wainstein 1960: 203, Tuttle and Baker 1968: 116, Meyer 1974: 248, Mitrofanov 1977: 1801-1802, Meyer 1987: 142, Beard et al. 2003: 51-78, Khanjani et al. 2018: 223-287, Li et al. 2019: 1071-1106.

Type species.

Heteronychus brevipodus Targioni-Tozzetti, 1878: 255.

Diagnosis.

(Based on: Pritchard and Baker 1955; Tuttle and Baker 1968; Meyer 1974, 1987; Beard et al. 2003, 2008; Khanjani et al. 2018). Empodia well developed, claw-like with proximoventral hairs (except male leg I with hairs modified into spur) that are as long as or shorter than empodial claw on most of legs; two pairs of duplex setae on tarsus I, distal and adjacent; opisthosoma with 11 pairs of dorsal setae (c1-3, d1-2, e1-2, f1-2, h2-3; n.b. setae h2 and h3 usually inserted ventrally); clunal setae h1 always absent.

Taxonomic review of the genus Oligonychus

The genus Oligonychus was erected by Berlese (1886), based on Heteronychus brevipodus Targioni-Tozzetti as the type species (specimen was a nymph), reported from the Holly Oak ( Quercus ilex L., Fagaceae ) in Italy ( Targioni-Tozzetti 1878). Because Berlese (1886) did not clearly describe the presence of proximoventral hairs on the empodial claws in the diagnosis of Oligonychus , Zacher (1913) created a new genus, Paratetranychus , and described the presence of proximoventral hairs in it. McGregor (1950) followed the work of Zacher (1913) by giving priority to Paratetranychus over Oligonychus , and placed all Oligonychus species within Paratetranychus . Five years later, Pritchard and Baker (1955) redefined the genus Oligonychus , and synonymized the genera Paratetranychus and Tacebia ( Yokoyama 1929) with Oligonychus.