Sperchon papillosus, Thor, 1901

Pešić, Vladimir, Zawal, Andrzej, Saboori, Alireza & Smit, Harry, 2021, New records of water mites (Acari, Hydrachnidia) from Iran with the description of one new species based on morphology and DNA barcodes, Zootaxa 5082 (5), pp. 425-440 : 432-433

Sperchon papillosus / S. compactilis —complex

Material examined— Sperchon papillosus Thor, 1901 . Iran, Mazandaran Province, IR7 small stream along road to Kandelous village , 36.426388 N, 51.470001 E, 28.viii.2017 leg. Pešić, Zawal & Saboori, 2♂, 1♀ (2♂ sequenced [ DCCDB072-21 , IRANM001-20 ]). Sperchon compactilis Koenike, 1911 . Golestan Province, IR2 Kaboud-val waterfall, 36.869720 N, 54.889168 E, 26.viii.2017 leg. Pešić, Zawal & Saboori, 1♂ (sequenced [ IRANM002-20 ], dissected and slide mounted [5. IR2 2017 G12]) .

Remarks— Asadi et al. (2010) re-examined the holotype of Sperchon bispinosus Bader & Sepasgosarian, 1982 a species described by Bader & Sepasgosarian (1982) from Elburs Mountain, North Iran and placed this species into synonymy of S. papillosus Thor, 1901 . Sperchon papillosus matches the original description of S. bispinosus in having integument sculpture made up of a network of fine denticles combined with additional larger papillae and the similar shape of dorsum and palp ( Asadi et al. 2010).

During our 2017 survey we collected and successfully barcoded three specimens from the S. papillosus / S. compactilis -complex from North Iran. Two specimens from a small stream along the road to Kandelous village match the description of S. bispinosus / S. papillosus : integument sculpture made up of a network of fine denticles combined with additional larger papillae and P-3 with two ventral setae. One specimen from Kaboud-val waterfall lacks the ventral setae on P-3 and we assigned it to S. compactilis .

In our COI tree ( Fig. 4 ) the sequence of the S. compactilis specimen from Iran represents a unique BIN (BOLD: AEI4363) and falls within a clade alongside the sequences from S. bispinosus specimens from Iran, which were grouped in a separate BIN (BOLD:AED2135). The examined specimens from Iran form a clade that is sister to the clade containing S. compactilis specimens (BIN BOLD:AEI4363) from the Netherlands, all nested within a clade that also includes a specimen of Sperchon papillosus from Montenegro that represent a unique BIN (BOLD: AED2134). The genetic distance between COI sequence groups (BINs) of examined specimens of S. papillosus / S. compactilis complex ranged from 1.79% K2P between Iranian specimens of S. papillosus and S. compactilis , to 5.11% K2P between S. papillosus specimen from Montenegro and specimens of S. compactilis from the Netherlands (see Table 5 ). Further studies integrating more markers and additional sampling is necessary to clarify the taxonomy of species of the S. papillosus / S. compactilis complex.

Figures

FIGURE 4. Neighbor-joining tree based on studied Sperchon COI sequences. The optimal tree with the sum of branch length = 1.14769493 is shown. The analysis involved 35 nucleotide sequences. There were a total of 670 positions in the final dataset.