Arthropods infesting small mammals (Insectivora and Rodentia) near Cedar Point Biological Station in southwestern Nebraska
Author
Howell, Lindsey
Author
Jelden, Katelyn
Author
Rácz, Elizabeth
Author
Gardner, Scott L.
Author
Gettinger, Donald
text
Insecta Mundi
2016
2016-04-15
2016
478
1
16
journal article
10.5281/zenodo.5170591
1942-1354
5170591
B7E405E4-1ED7-477F-926E-C8A6FDB7FB1D
Androlaelaps circularis
(Ewing)
Type
host:
Peromyscus truei
(Shufedlt, 1885)
;
Type
locality: Salina,
Utah
.
Deposition, host records, and locality:
HWML
101731, 101732, and 101733,
Pm. maniculatus
/ Ackley 2013.
Remarks:
Androlaelaps
(subgenus
Eubrachylaelaps
) spp. are distinctive, highly sclerotized, circularshaped mites associated primarily with peromyscine rodents in North and Central America, and with Akodontine and Abrotrichine rodents in South America (
Gettinger and Gardner 2015
).
Androlaelaps circularis
has been reported from a long list of neotomine rodents in North and Central America (
Furman 1955
). The wide range of morphological variation across closely related host species and a wide geographic range has never been studied critically. Although the implication in the literature points toward intraspecific geographic variation (see
Furman 1955
), in South America, a morphometric analysis of the congeneric species
Androlaelaps rotundus
(Fonseca, 1936)
concluded that this nominal form is a composite of cryptic species, each associated with a separate host species (
Gettinger and Owen 2000
). The subgenus
Eubrachylaelaps
is in great need of revision to evaluate this variation, and to assess the monophyly of these mites infesting different host groups in the Nearctic (Neotominae) and Neotropical (Sigmodontinae) regions.