Carolinea 77

168 Carolinea 77 (2019) Belba species from Central Asia ( B ulanova - Z achvatkina 1962, T olstikov 1996, T olstikov & L yashchev 1996). No reference to such a seta is made by either M ihel č i č (1957) or P érez - Í ñigo (1970, 1997). With reference to the femora of Belba sculpta , P érez - Í ñigo (1970, p. 277) states: “todos los pelos son finas y flexuosus”. Again it is conceivable that the short stubby character of seta l’ may have been overlooked or disregarded, because it may have been considered a broken off seta. Since the legs of Belba sculpta were not adequately illustrated in either M ihel č i č (1957) or P érez - Í ñigo (1970, 1997), it is not possible to have absolute certainty in the matter. Even if it would be demonstrated that the Belba sculpta from Spain do not possess the highly modified ceratiform femoral seta l’, this distinction alone would not justify recombining the Dossenwald Belba with a species other than B. sculpta , or possibly erecting a new species level taxon for them. Although I consider it highly likely that the Dos- senwald Belba does indeed belong to Belba sculpta , possibly being a subspecies of the latter, this still demands formal proof which requires the reexamination and detailed redescription of the type material of Belba sculpta , B . aberrans and B . ignota . The question of character variability will also have to be addressed in various populations of Belba sculpta originating from both Spain and Germany. The Belba cf. sculpta collected at the Pollino Massif in the Apennine mountains in southern Italy differs from the Spanish Belba sculpta in possessing more medially inserted rostral setae and a non-flagellate sensillus, based on B erni ­ ni et al. (1987). It accordingly differs in the same way from the Dossenwald Belba sculpta . Belba meridionalis from Turkmenistan, initially described by B ulanova - Z achvatkina (1962), is a second species which shows a strong similarity to the Belba specimens from Mannheim. Sha- red characters in addition to those mentioned already include: 1) a short, thick, thorn-like seta l’ paraxially on femur II; 2) a relatively broadly rounded rostrum 3) tubercle Sa of parastigmatic enantiophyses long, laterally directed and with a sharply pointed apex, tubercle Sp much shorter, subtriangular; 4) mutual distance between rostral setae greater than between lamellar setae; 5) distance between insertions of notogastral setal pair c2 about 4 times that of c1 . Based on the text and illustrations in B ulanova - Z achvatkina (1962, 1967, 1975), Belba meridio­ nalis differs from the Dossenwald Belba sculpta in the following: 1) postbothridial tubercle Bp ab- sent; 2) presence of only 6 setae on femur I; 3) equal length of solenidion and seta d on tibia III; 4) tibia of leg IV twice as long as tibiae I-III; 5) much shorter setae d and l’ on genu IV relative to the length of this segment; 6) much shorter setae d and l’ on tibia IV relative to the length of this segment; 7) more marginal placement of inser- tions of notogastral setae c2-h3; 8) adult mites carry nymphal scalps on notogaster; 9) a greater body size of 620-660 µm. The very brief documentation of Belba meridio­ nalis by B ulanova - Z achvatkina (1962, 1967, 1975) does not give sufficient information on the ven- tral characters and on the leg setation other than that of the femur II, genu IV and tibia IV. Clear- ly the species should be redescribed. However, the holotype of Belba meridionalis does unfor- tunately no longer exist in the collection of the museum of the Institute for Animal Systematics and Ecology in Novosibirsk, which houses the damaeid mite collection of B ulanova - Z achvatkina ( T olstiko v & L yashchev 1996). The latter authors carried out a very thorough search for any other material of Belba meridionalis in several collec- tions in Russia and Uzbekistan and found only two microscope slides labelled B . meridionalis. These contained other Belba species, however, namely B . bulanovae S ubías , 2016 (correspondi- ng to B . minuta B ulanova -Z achvatkina , 1962), and B . lammeisetosa T olstiko v & L yashchev 1996, re- spectively. Although it cannot be ruled out that the mites from Mannheim may well belong to Belba meridionalis , based on what little we know about this taxon, and only if we assume an inaccurate description by B ulanova -Z achvatkina (1962, 1967, 1975), there is no way at present to verify this due to a complete absence of material and the highly incomplete description of B . meridionalis . T olstiko v & L yashchev (1996: p. 3) write: “The existence of B . meridionalis B.-Z., 1962 remains questionable”. At the present time Belba meridi­ onalis may be considered as being effectively a species inquirenda. B ernini et al. (1995) mention collection records of an as yet undescribed Belba cf. meridionalis from Sicily in their checklist of the Italian acarofauna. Morphology of Belba sculpta A pair of minute light spots is found on the no- togaster of Belba sculpta posteriomediad the insertion points of setae la, and another similar pair is located posteromediad setae lp. These