Euseius baetae (Meyer & Rodrigues, 1966)

Kreiter, Serge, Payet, Rose-My & Azali, Hamza Abdou, 2021, Phytoseiid mites (Acari: Mesostigmata) of Mohéli Island (Comoros Archipelago), Acarologia 61 (1), pp. 94-114 : 100-101

Euseius baetae (Meyer & Rodrigues)

Amblyseius baetae ( Meyer & Rodrigues, 1966): 28.

Euseius baetae (Meyer & Rodrigues), Moraes et al. 1986: 37, 2001: 11, 2004b: 62; Chant & McMurtry 2005b: 215 ; 2007: 120 ; El Banhawy & Knapp, 2011: 36.

Amblyseius (Amblyseius) kangwanensis Ueckermann & Loots 1988: 85 (synonymy according to Ueckermann & Loots, 1988).

The 200 species of the genus Euseius are considered as Type IV species, polliniphagous generalists ( McMurtry and Croft 1997 ; McMurtry et al. 2013). Like the previous Euseius species , the biology of E. baetae is however totally unknown.

Specimens examined: seven specimens (5 ♀♀, 1 ♂ and 1 imm.) collected during this study.

Fomboni, inside the town (15 m aasl, 12°17 ′ 29 ″ S, 43°44 ′ 35 ″ E), 3 ♀♀ on Senna siamea

(Lamarck) Irwin & Barneby ( Fabaceae ), 2/XII/2018 and 1 ♂ and 1 imm. on Pterocarpus indicus Willdenow ( Fabaceae , 4/XII/2018 ; Bangoma, Bridge (11 m aasl, 12°17 ′ 2 ″ S, 43°45 ′ 5 ″

E), 3 ♀♀ on Averroha carambola L. ( Oxalidaceae ), 4/XII/2018.

Previous record: Congo, Grande Comore, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa.

Remarks: measurements of the five females ( Table 1 ) and one male ( Table 2) fit well with the measurements from the literature with slightly shorter dimensions in general, except concerning specimens from Grande Comore ( Kreiter et al. 2018b), the neighboring island in the West less than 40 km from coasts of Mohéli. These specimens have almost identical measurements.