Gymnolaelaps Berlese

Joharchi, Omid, Halliday, Bruce, Saboori, Alireza & Kamali, Karim, 2011, New species and new records of mites of the family Laelapidae (Acari: Mesostigmata) associated with ants in Iran, Zootaxa 2972, pp. 22-36 : 23

Genus Gymnolaelaps Berlese

Hypoaspis (Gymnolaelaps) Berlese, 1916: 170 .

Type species Laelaps myrmecophilus Berlese, 1892 , by original designation.

Diagnosis. Laelapidae usually with a three-tined palp tarsal claw, proximal tine occasionally reduced, rarely absent; genital shield large, abutting anal shield, with 1–3 pairs of setae in addition to the genital setae st5, all located on the edges of the shield; pre-sternal shield well-developed and sclerotised; a large subtriangular podal shield usually present posterior to coxa IV; epistome with irregularly serrated anterior margin; genu IV with nine setae including one ventral seta. Dorsal shield often with paired Zx setae between J and Z setae, unpaired Jx setae also often present; dorsal shield setae distally pointed, smooth or slightly serrated, not long and whip-like.

Notes on the genus. The genus Gymnolaelaps has been collected in many parts of the world, almost always from ants' nests. The genus includes approximately 35 described species ( Hunter, 1967; Gu & Guo, 1997; Afifi & Abdel-Halim, 1998). Gymnolaelaps has often been considered as a subgenus of a very broad genus Hypoaspis , but we consider it to be a separate genus, following Evans & Till (1979). Nemati et al. (2000) reported five species of Gymnolaelaps from Iran— G. hospes ( Berlese, 1923) , G. myrmophilus ( Michael, 1891) , G. vitzthumi Womersley, 1956 , G. australicus Womersley, 1956 , and an unidentified species. We follow Hunter (1961) in placing G. vitzthumi in the genus Laelaspis . Hunter (1967) reported that the type species G. myrmecophilus has three stronglydeveloped tines on the palp tarsal claw, as do most other species in the genus. Two species, G. canestrinii ( Berlese, 1892) and G. myrmophilus , have a weakly-developed proximal tine, and in G. krantzi ( Hunter, 1967) , there are only two tines. Jalalizand et al. (2004) reported Pseudoparasitus sp. near australicus Womersley and P. myrmecophilus (Berlese) from Iran. We place both of these species in the genus Gymnolaelaps , but we did not find specimens of G. myrmecophilus in the present study.