Phthiracarus spec.

van der Hammen, L., 1959, Berlese's Primitive Oribatid Mites, Zoologische Verhandelingen 40, pp. 1-93 : 48

Phthiracarus spec.

Hoplophora globosa , Berlese, 1883a, fasc. 6 (3); 1883c, p. 220 (sep. p. 11).

Hoploderma globosum , Berlese, 1913a, p. 54, textfig., prep. I-13.

Phthiracarus globosus , Lombardini, 1936, p. 47.

The identity of Hoplophora globosa C. L. Koch (1841) is not yet certain. Although the species has been recorded from many localities in Europe, I do not think that these records concern one species. Anyhow, the species mentioned from Western Europe as Phthiracarus globosus is certainly different from Berlese's species. I remark that Berlese's slide no. 207/48 (locality: Palermo; apparently one of his 1883 specimens) is different from P. globosus sensu Willmann because only the anterior three pairs of dorsal hairs are rather long, whilst the fourth pair is smaller and curved backward; the Position of the anal hairs resembles that of Willmann's globosus . Because Berlese's A.M.S. figure strongly differs from the Palermo specimen (notogastral and anal hairs!), the drawing is apparently a synthetic one, prepared after more than one species (Berlese mentions the species from Sicily and North Italy). The figure in the text of the Acarotheca italica (1913a) is a copy of the 1883a figure. I regard the above-mentioned records therefore as uncertain.