Armascirus Den Heyer 1978

Genus ARMASCIRUS Den Heyer, 1978

Scirus Kramer 1881: 433 –435; Berlese 1888a: 48.10 & 1888b: 188;

Banks 1894: 220 & 1907: 597; Trägårdh 1910: 481–482.

Cunaxa Thor 1912: 389; Banks 1914: 55; Schweizer 1922:81; Vitzthum 1925: 66–68 & 1929: 60; Womersley 1933: 111; Thor & Willmann 1941:168 –170; Baker & Hoffmann 1948: 232–233; Schweizer & Bader 1963: 250; Shiba 1969: 91 –92; Ghilarov 1978: 146 –147; Tseng 1980: 257.

Armascirus Den Heyer 1978: 217 –239; Corpuz-Raros 1995: 160 –166; Smiley 1992: 137 –152; Bashir et al 2008:

115–127; Kaluz 2009: 27–40.

Dactyloscirus Chaudhri et al. 1979: 179; Michocka 1982: 328 & 1987: 95–97; Smiley 1992: 216 –221, 224–226, 228–230,

246–247.

Indocunaxa Gupta & Ghosh 1980: 193 –194.

Type species: Armascirus huyssteeni Den Heyer, 1978

Den Heyer (1978) provided an historical overview as well as detailed descriptions and figures of species (and their developmental stages) belonging to this genus. Many new species have been added since then (Michocka 1982; Smiley 1992; Bashir et al. 2008; Corpus-Raros 2008; Kaluz 2009) but most of these authors failed to provide very detailed figures, especially of the legs; in some cases the differences between st-setae and solenidia on the legs cannot be recognized; in other instances (Bashir et al. 2008) tritonymphs & deutonymphs are described as females. Sexual dimorphism in adult Cunaxidae is a recognized phenomenon. Males are usually smaller than females and show differences in the forms of a large range of setae, body shields and genital features. Dimorphism in specific cunaxid developmental stages has been reported by Den Heyer (1979: in Coleoscirus tuberculatus; 1980: in Neocunaxoides rykei, N. lajumensis and N. zuluensis). This phenomenon seems to be the furthest manifested in the genus Armascirus. The female and male palps of most other genera are fairly uniform anatomically and differ mainly in size. In this genus it becomes very difficult to bring the male features in correlation with those of the female. The only criterion to determine sexual connection is by geographical data, that is, that males and females from the same sample can be regarded as of being of the same species (yet this is not always a valid assumption). Any other method, except perhaps DNA tests, is in most cases pure guess work.

The females in the studied Neotropical collection exhibit four “sizes” of dorsal hysterosomal shields, viz. very small and lacking setae, small and carrying setae d1, large and carrying setae d1 and nearly reaching setae e1, and very large carrying setae d1 and e1. The males associated with these four types of females, however, can be placed into only two groups. The samples containing females with a very large hysterosomal shield did not yield any males. Only one male was associated with females having a very small hysterosomal shield; this male, however, shows a typical chaetotaxy of the specimen from Piracicaba. All males studied fall only into two groups, viz. those with genua III- IV with ordinary 1 asl – 2 asl, as opposed to those with genua III–IV with 1 stout bsl – 1 stout bsl, 1 asl (see Figs 27–30). Having discussed all the above, this paper will deal with only two new Armascirus spp., being fully aware that the above-mentioned collection may represent more than these two species.