First record of Petrobia ( Petrobia ) pseudotetranychina (Trombidiformes: Tetranychidae) in Asia, with two new host plants for Tetranychidae from Iran

Abstract

Petrobia Murray, 1877 genus belong to the Tetranychidae family , BryobiinaeBerlese subfamily and Petrobiini Reck, 1952 tribe. Petrobia comprised three subgenera: Mesotetranychus Reck,1948, Petrobia Murray, 1877 and Tetranychina Wainstein, 1960(Mahdavi et al. 2018). By the year 2019, there were 80 species belong to Tetranychidae from Iran and among them 4 species (P. brevipes Reck & Bagdasarian, 1949, P. hordei Khanjani, Khanjani & Seeman, 2016, P. latens (Muller, 1776) and P. norbakhshi Khanjani, Khanjani & Seeman, 2016) belong to Petrobia (Petrobia) (Migeon & Dorkeld, 2006-2019). In this paper we report the first record of P. (P.) pseudotetranychina Auger & Flechtmann, 2009 (Acariformes: Tetranychoidea: Tetranychidae) from Iran collected on Salsola sp. (Amaranthaceae), which is also the second report of this species in the world. Moreover, this paper introduces two new host plants (Capparis spinosa Linnaeus and Cydonia oblonga Miller) for tetranychid mites from Iran. Capparis spinosa is also the first record for the world. To collect mite species, leaves and sheaths of Salsola sp. were collected in bags and taken to the laboratory. Mites were removed from infested plants by dipping-washing-filtering method (Boller, 1984). This solution was filtered through a sieve (400 mesh) and then mites were washed with ethanol 70% into a Petridish. They were mounted in Hoyer’s medium. Specimens were examined using an Olympus® BX43 phase contrast compound microscope.