Hirstionyssus butantanensis ( Fonseca, 1932 )

Vinarski, Maxim V. & Korallo-Vinarskaya, Natalia P., 2020, An annotated catalogue of the gamasid mites associated with small mammals in Asiatic Russia. The family Hirstionyssidae (Acari: Mesostigmata: Gamasina), Zootaxa 4838 (1), pp. 102-118 : 105

Hirstionyssus butantanensis ( Fonseca, 1932)

? Acarus musculi Schrank 1803 : Fauna Boica, 3: 208.

Ichoronyssus butantanensis Fonseca 1932: 135 , textfig.

Liponyssus latiscutatus de Meillon & Lavoipierre 1944: 62 , fig. 5 A.

Ichoronyssus orcadensis Turk 1946: 786 , figs 1–7.

Hirstionyssus musculi (Johnston, 1849) — Bregetova 1956: 185, 194, figs 402, 437–441, 476–478 (partim).

Hirstionyssus latiscutatus — Fonseca 1948: 298; Evans & Till 1966: 291, fig. 71, A, B,72; Allred 1969: 242; Herrin 1970: 422, figs 57–59; Zuevsky 1970: 1343, fig. 1; Koroleva 1977: 137, figs 4 (2), 6 (3); Senotrusova 1987: 104, fig. 51; Goncharova et al. 1991: 77.

Echinonyssus butantanensis — Tenorio 1984: 265; Mašán & Fend’a 2010: 121, figs 113–116.

Type locality: Brazil, Sao Paulo .

Type series: Brazil, Sao Paulo, Butantan Institute .

Type host: Mus musculus (Linnaeus, 1758) , albino morph (the white mouse)

Host range: H. butantanensis prefers murine rodents of the genera Mus and Rattus ( Mašán & Fend’a 2010).

Distribution: Virtually cosmopolitan; the tight association of H. butantanensis with synanthropic rodents possibly explains its finding from areas far remoted from the type locality, e.g. in New Zealand ( Tenquist & Charleston 2001). In Asiatic Russia, the species has been known (as H. latiscutatus ) from Western Siberia and the southern parts of Eastern Siberia ( Davydova & Nikol’sky 1986; Nikulina 2004).

Notes: In Russian parasitological and acarological literature the name H. butantanensis is not in common use; most authors have used the name H. latiscutatus (see, for example, Zuevsky 1970; Nikulina 2004).

The identity of Schrank’s (1803) mite species Acarus musculi (type host—the house mouse) is enigmatic due to the brevity of its original description and loss of the type series. Some authors (e.g. Baker & Wharton 1952) assigned this species to the genus Steatonyssus Kolenati, 1858 . However, Steatonyssus mites are obligatory parasites of bats, and the finding of a member of this genus on the skin of a house mouse is very unlikely ( Till & Evans 1964).