Jedediella, Kontschán & Starý, 2012

Kontschán, Jenő & Starý, Josef, 2012, New Uropodina (Acari: Mesostigmata) from California, USA, Zootaxa 3210, pp. 26-38 : 26-27

Jedediella gen. nov.

Type species Jedediella horneri sp. nov.

Diagnosis. Idiosoma oval, dorsally domed and strongly sclerotised. Dorsal and marginal shields completely separated, all dorsal setae needle-like. Surface of dorsal and ventral shields smooth, caudal region of dorsal shield bearing a large depression. Genital shield of female ornamented by oval pits. Peritremes L-shaped. Leg I without ambulacral claws, and with smooth setae. Ventral surface of hypostome with small, spine-like structures in the deutosternal groove. Hypostomal setae h1 very long and marginally pilose, h2 smooth or marginally pilose, h3 and h4 marginally pilose. Internal malae narrow, setiform, very long, marginally pilose. Chelicerae long and narrow, fixed digit of chelicerae as long as movable digit, medial part without teeth, movable digit bearing one large tooth on apical area, fixed digit with a bulbiform sensory organ on anterolateral region. Internal sclerotised node absent on chelicerae.

Etymology. We dedicate the new genus to Jedediah Strong Smith (January 6, 1799 – May 27, 1831), who was a hunter, cartographer and explorer of the Rocky Mountains and other regions of the American west coast and southwest. The new species was collected in Jedediah Smith State Park, California. Gender. Feminine.

Notes on the genus. Similar long, narrow and smooth chelicerae can be found only in the genus Hutufeideria Hirschmann & Hiramatsu, 1977 . The most important differences between Jedediella gen. nov. and Hutufeideria are presented in the Table 1 . The chelicerae of other known Uropodina without internal sclerotised cheliceral nodes are shorter and wider, the fixed digit longer than the movable digit, often bearing teeth on the medial area of both digits and an apical process on the fixed digit. In contrast, in the new genus the fixed digit is as long as the movable digit, the chelicerae are long and narrow, they lack teeth on the medial area, and there is no apical process on the fixed digit.

Unfortunately uropodine families Uropodina are not well defined, and the classification system of Uropodina is quite confusing. We provisionally place the new genus into the family Uropodidae on the basis of the following characters: long h1 setae; chelicerae without internal sclerotised node and without mushroom- or flower-shaped sensory organ on fixed digit; terminally smooth corniculi ( Lindquist et al., 2009). We note that all members of this family need revision.

Tables

TABLE 1. Character states that distinguish between the genera Jedediella and Hutufeideria.

	Jedediella	Hutufeideria
Internal sclerotised node of chelicerae	absent	present
Surface of corniculi	smooth	with 1–5 teeth
Insertion of corniculi	at level of insertion of h1	below level of insertion of h1
Setae h1	simple and pilose	serrate and apically divided into 2–3 branches or simple and smooth
Ventral surface of gnathosoma	small, spine-like structures present	smooth
Shape of peritreme	L-shaped	M-shaped
Pygidial shield	absent	present