Amblyseius swirskii Athias-Henriot, 1962

ZahidiK, Abdelaziz, Akchour, Abdellah, K, Serge Kreiter, TixierK, Marie-Stéphane, MsandaK, Fouad & MousadikK, Abdelhamid El, 2023, Phytoseiid mites (Acari: Mesostigmata) from Central West Morocco: new records and key to females of all recorded Moroccan species, Acarologia 63 (3), pp. 691-724 : 701

Amblyseius swirskii Athias-Henriot

Amblyseius swirskii Athias-Henriot 1962: 5 .

Amblyseius (Amblyseius) swirskii, Ehara 1966: 23 .

Typhlodromips swirskii, Moraes et al. 1986: 149 , 2004a: 227.

Amblyseius swirskii, Chant & McMurtry 2004: 201 , 2007: 81.

Amblyseius rykei, Pritchard & Baker 1962: 249 (Synonymy according to Zannou & Hanna 2011).

Amblyseius enab, El-Badry 1967a: 178 (Synonymy according to Ramadan et al. 2009). Amblyseius capsicum ( Basha, Yousef, Ibrahim & Mostafa 2001) : 372 (Synonymy according to Abo-Shnaf & Moraes 2014).

World distribution — Argentina, Azerbaijan, Benin, Burundi, Cape Verde, DR Congo, Egypt, Gaza strip, Georgia, Ghana, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Reunion Island, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Tanzania, Turkey, USA, and Yemen.

Specimens examined — 2 ♀♀ collected on citrus leaves at Stah Al Madina orchard in September 2018 ; 5 ♀♀ on Solanum nigrum L. ( Solanaceae ) at Saouda orchard (Ouled Teima) in September 2018. This is the first record of that species in Morocco, naturally occurring or originating from dispersion in the environment after commercial releases in greenhouses.

Remarks — The description and measurements of the adult females collected agree with those provided by Ferragut et al. (2010) for specimens from Spain, by Zannou and Hanna (2011) for specimens from sub-Saharan Africa and by Kreiter et al. (2016a, b) for specimens from Reunion Island and from various countries in the world. Amblyseius swirskii is one of the most efficient phytoseiid species; it is currently released in more than 50 countries of the world ( Calvo et al. 2015). It originates from the East Mediterranean coast and has been described in 1962 from almond [ Prunus dulcis (Mill.) D.A. Webb. ] ( Rosaceae ) in Bet Dagan, Israel by Athias-Henriot. This species is able to develop not only in the Mediterranean basin, but also in subtropical and tropical areas in Africa ( Zannou and Hanna 2011). It is commonly used to control whiteflies and thrips in greenhouse vegetables (especially cucumber and pepper) and some ornamental crops in Europe and North America ( Buitenhuis et al. 2014 ; Calvo et al. 2015).