Phytoseius finitimus Ribaga, 1904

Tixier, Marie-Stephane, Auger, Philippe, Migeon, Alain, Douin, Martial, Fossoud, Amandine, Navajas, Maria & Arabuli, Tea, 2021, Integrated taxonomy supports the identification of some species of Phytoseiidae (Acari: Mesostigmata) from Georgia, Acarologia 61 (4), pp. 824-844 : 839-840

Phytoseius finitimus Ribaga

Phytoseius finitimus Ribaga 1904: 178 .

Phytoseius (Dubininellus) finitimus, Wainstein 1959: 1365 .

Phytoseius (Pennaseius) finitimus, Pritchard & Baker 1962: 223 .

Pennaseius finitimus, Schuster & Pritchard 1963: 279 .

Phytoseius (Phytoseius) finitimus , Denmark 1966: 16.

Phytoseius dubinini Beglyarov 1958: 116 (synonymy according to Pritchard & Baker 1962).

Specimens examined. At Bolnisi (Kveshi) (41.4401° N, 44.4463° E): 9 ♀♀ and 5 ♂♂ on Rubus sp. (Rosaceae) , at Bolnisi (Parizi) (41.4709° N, 44.7361° E): 9 ♀♀ and 5 ♂♂ on Rubus sp. (Rosaceae) , at Gardabani (Vaziani) (41.7004° N, 45.0543° E): 9 ♀♀ and 4 ♂♂ on Rubus sp. (Rosaceae) , at Gurjaani (Chalaubani) (41.6291° N, 45.7946° E): 11 ♀♀ and 3 ♂♂ on Rubus

sp. ( Rosaceae ), at Kharagauli (Rd S1 2.5km East of Tsakva) (42.0965° N, 43.4532° E): 13

♀♀, 2 ♂♂ and 1 immature on Rubus sp. (Rosaceae) , at Kobuleti (Daba Chakvi) (41.7180° N, 41.7384° E): 1 ♀ on Citrus sp. (Rutaceae) , at Kvareli (Eniseli) (41.9988° N, 45.6702° E): 2 ♀♀

on Ulmus minor (Ulmaceae) , at Lanchkhuti (Grigoleti) (42.0192° N, 41.7629° E): 8 ♀♀ and

3 ♂♂ on Rubus sp. (Rosaceae) , at Lanchkhuti (Maltakva Univ. Research Center) (42.0528°

N, 41.7273° E): 9 ♀♀ and 1 ♂ on Rubus sp. (Rosaceae) , at Sagarejo (Tokhliauri) (41.7299° N, 45.4236° E): 11 ♀♀ and 3 ♂♂ on Rubus sp. (Rosaceae) , at Senaki (Sakharbedio) (42.2858° N, 42.0381° E): 9 ♀♀, 1 ♂ and 1 immature on Rubus sp. (Rosaceae) and 1 ♀ on Corylus avellana (Betulaceae) , at Telavi (5 kms West from Telavi) (41.9283° N, 45.4241° E): 3 ♀♀ on Rubus sp. (Rosaceae) , at Terjola (Chognari) (42.2305° N, 42.7781° E): 1 ♀ on Rubus sp. (Rosaceae) , at Tetri Tskaro (Koda) (41.5953° N, 44.7767° E): 12 ♀♀, and 3 ♂♂ on Rubus sp. (Rosaceae) .

Previous records. Algeria, Azores, Egypt, France, Greece, Iran, Israel, Italy, Montenegro, Morocco, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, USA.

Remarks. According to the world database of Demite et al. (2021), P. finitimus is not reported from Georgia. However, Phytoseius plumifer (Canestrini and Fanzago) has been reported several times from this country. Because of its long history of misidentification with P. finitimus ( Duso and Fontana 2002) , we can wonder about the specimens reported under the name of P. plumifer from Georgia.

Phytoseius finitimus was the most frequent species retrieved herein (41% of the specimens collected).

CytB (29), COI (28) and 12S (18) sequences were obtained and compared to those of Tixier et al. (2017) for specimens collected on Viburnum tinus (Adoxaceae) , Vitis vinifera (Vitaceae) from Italy and Actinidia deliciosa (Actinidiacae) from France. The supplementary table S4 shows the genetic distances obtained. Low intraspecific variation was observed for the Georgian specimens. The Georgian specimens are molecularly closer to those from A. deliciosa and V. vinifera than to those from V. tinus , whatever the samples considered (locations and plants). It is worth to note that for the three molecular fragments, a high genetic distance is observed between a specimen collected from Rubus sp. at Bolnisi-Kveshi and all the others (Supplementary Table S4).