A newly recognized family of the Ascoidea (Acari: Mesostigmata: Gamasina), based on a revised concept of the subgenus Lasioseius (Endopodalius) Christian and Karg, 2006

Abstract

The systematic position of the subgenus Endopodalius Christian and Karg, 2006, previously recognized by Lindquist and Evans, 1965, as the scutalis species group in Lasioseius, is reviewed. Based in part on plesiomorphic structures of the female sperm access system being of a laelapoid type, it is removed as a subgenus of the blattisociid genus Lasioseius in the superfamily Phytoseioidea and accomodated as a separate genus within the superfamily Ascoidea. In other respects, adult females of this taxon are so distinctive apomorphically to justify separate family group recognition, Endopodaliidae, fam. nov., tentatively related as a sister-group to the morphologically and behaviorally more derived Antennochelidae Lindquist and Moraza, 2014. Species of this family are tropical, their adult females phoretic on beetles of various families of the infraorder Cucujiformia, suborder Polyphaga. A diagnosis of the family and revised description of Endopodalius based on adult females and males are presented, with an updated key to world recognized species of the genus, including the following new binominal combinations, Endopodalius americanus (Chant,1963), Endopodalius mouchei (Loots, 1980), and a new synonym: E. scutalis (Banks, 1914) (= E. prorsoperitrematus Abo-Shnaf et al., 2016). A lectotype is designated from type material of Hypoaspis scutalis Banks, 1914.