Eulaelaps kolpakovae Bregetova, 1950

Vinarski, Maxim V. & Korallo-Vinarskaya, Natalia P., 2017, An annotated catalogue of the gamasid mites associated with small mammals in Asiatic Russia. The family Haemogamasidae (Acari: Mesostigmata: Gamasina), Zootaxa 4273 (1), pp. 1-18 : 3

Eulaelaps kolpakovae Bregetova, 1950

Eulaelaps kolpakovae Bregetova, 1950: 13 , fig. 1.

Eulaelaps kolpakovae .— Bregetova, 1955: 319, figs 649, 651, 655–659; Bregetova, 1956a: 102, figs 172, 176, 179-182; Lange, 1958: 201, pl. LXXI, G; Strandtmann & Wharton, 1958: 128; Piryanik, 1962: 84; Allred, 1969: 108, fig. P-4; Senotrusova, 1987: 150, fig. 73; Goncharova et al., 1991: 24.

Eulaelaps novus.— Evans & Till, 1966: 263, fig. 62 (partim); Evans & Till, 1979: 239, fig. 33, g, h, k (partim); Karg, 1993: 166 (partim); Mašán & Fend’a, 2010: 108, figs 105, 106, 109 (partim).

Type locality. Russia, Astrakhan’ Region, Staryi Tuzukley settlement.

Type specimens. ZIN. The type specimens included 12 syntypes (females only), now only ten of them (eight slides) remain in the collection.

Type host. Arvicola terrestris (L., 1758), the European water vole.

Host range. This species is a predatory mite with a weak tendency towards hematophagy ( Goncharova et al., 1991). It has been collected from a wide spectrum of rodents and insectivores (mainly from their burrows) and birds (from nests). Eu. kolpakovae does not demonstrate a specific relationship with any particular species of mammal hosts ( Goncharova et al., 1991).

Distribution. Southern part of Eastern Europe, the Urals, Central Asia, southern Siberia and the Russian Far East. Its distribution in Asiatic Russia roughly coincides with that of Eu. cricetuli ( Nikulina, 2004) .

Remarks. Evans & Till (1966) proposed to synonymise Eulaelaps kolpakovae with Eu. novus Vitzthum, 1925. This opinion was accepted by Karg (1971), Haitlinger (1988) and Mašán & Fend’a (2010), among others. However, Senotrusova (1976, 1987) and Goncharova et al. (1991) provided additional morphological evidence in favour Eu. kolpakovae as a separate species. Mašán & Fend’a (2010), in their discussion of the taxonomic position of Eu. kolpakovae , did not consider these arguments. Senotrusova (1976, 1987) believes that Eu. novus is merely an intraspecific form of Eu. stabularis . According to Strandtmann & Wharton (1958), Vitzthum, the author of the species Eu. novus, also assumed that this taxon may represent ‘a small form of stabularis ’. Thus, the taxonomic status of these two species needs a new revision. Sludsky (2014) listed Eu. kolpakovae among mite species able to harbour Yersinia pestis – the causative agent of the plague.