Alloptes (Alloptes) aschizurus Gaud, 1952

Han, Yeong-Deok, Mironov, Sergey V., Kim, Jeong-Hoon & Min, Gi-Sik, 2021, Feather mites (Acariformes, Astigmata) from marine birds of the Barton Peninsula (King George Island, Antarctica), with descriptions of two new species, ZooKeys 1061, pp. 109-130 : 109

Alloptes (Alloptes) aschizurus Gaud, 1952

Alloptes aschizurus Gaud, 1952: 163-164, fig. 2; Atyeo and Peterson 1967: 98; 1970: 129.

Alloptes (Alloptes) aschizurus : Gaud 1972: 59.

Material examined.

3 males and 3 females (NIBR No. NIBRIV0000887146-NIBRIV0000887151) from Chionis albus (Gmelin) ( Charadriiformes , Chionidae ), Antarctica, King George Island , Barton Peninsula, 62°14'16"S, 58°46'13"W, 8 January 2016, coll. Han Y.-D.

Remarks.

Alloptes (Alloptes) aschizurus was initially described from specimens collected from the Black-faced Sheathbill, Chionis minor (Hartlaub) on Kerguelen Island ( Gaud 1952). Later, this mite species was found on the same host on Heard Island and on the Snowy Sheathbill, Ch. albus , on Greenwich Island and Gaston Islands ( Atyeo and Peterson 1967). As for all members of the subgenus Alloptes Alloptes s. str., this mite species is characterized by the following features: in both sexes, genual setae mG II are spiculiform; in males, the opisthosoma is shaped as an equilateral triangle with a strongly enlarged posterior end; in females, the posterior end of the opisthosoma is rounded, and the opisthosomal lobes are not developed ( Gaud 1972; Vasyukova and Mironov 1991; Mironov and Hernandes 2020). Alloptes (A.) aschizurus is distinguished from the closest species of the subgenus, A. (A.) tringae (Grube, 1859) [widely known under the junior synonym A. (A.) crassipes (Canestrini, 1878)] in having the following features. In both sexes, the length of the idiosoma is approximately 500 long (vs approximately 450 in A. tringae ), and trochanteral setae sR III are equal to or slightly longer than the trochanters III (vs distinctly shorter than the trochanters) ( Gaud 1952; Atyeo and Peterson 1967; Vasyukova and Mironov 1991; Mironov and Hernandes 2020).

Molecular data.

The COI sequences were obtained from two individuals and deposited in GenBank with accession numbers MZ489637 and MZ489638.