Zachvatkinia (Zachvatkinia) sternae (Canestrini & Fanzago, 1876)

Negm, Mohamed W., Nasser, D., Alatawi, Fahad J., Al Ahmad, Azzam M. & Shobrak, Mohammed, 2013, Feather mites of the genus Zachvatkinia Dubinin, 1949 (Astigmata: Analgoidea: Avenzoariidae) from Saudi Arabia: A new species and two new records, Zootaxa 3710 (1), pp. 61-71 : 70

Zachvatkinia (Zachvatkinia) sternae (Canestrini & Fanzago, 1876)

Dermaleichus sternae Canestrini & Fanzago, 1876: 109 .

Specimen examined. One male ex sooty gull, Ichthyaetus hemprichii (Bruch, 1853) ( Charadriiformes : Laridae ), Umm Al-Malik Island, Red Sea, Tabuk province, Saudi Arabia, 25º13'48''N, 37º8'37''E, 12 November 2011, leg. M. Shobrak.

Remarks. In Saudi Arabia, the sooty gull is considered as a coastal gull found throughout the year in the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf, especially around fishing ports. It is distributed through Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, India, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Maldives, Mozambique, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates and Yemen (Pons et al. 2005; Cottridge 2006; Porter & Aspinall 2010).

The type specimens of Z. sternae were collected from Chlidonias niger (Linnaeus, 1978) in Italy (Canestrini & Fanzago 1876) and further it was recorded by these authors also from Sterna hirundo Linnaeus, 1758 (Canestrini & Fanzago 1877) . We consider the collection of Z. sternae from I. hemprichii to represent a new host record for this species although we collected only one specimen of it. The Saudi male specimen is very similar to the redescription done by Mironov (1989a: 97) who depicted the ventral setae cx3 (= 3b) and c1 (= 3a) at one level. However, 3b are distinctly posterior to the level of 3a in the Saudi specimen. We consider this difference to represent intraspecific variation. This is the first record of this species in Saudi Arabia. Z. sternae occurs in Italy (Canestrini & Fanzago 1876, 1877), Russia (Mironov, 1989a) and Saudi Arabia (present study).