Two new species of the genus Agauopsis (Acari: Halacaridae) from Korea

Abstract

Two halacarid species of the genus Agauopsis Viets, 1927, which are tentatively new to science, are reported from Jeju Island and southern coast of the Korean peninsula. They were collected by washing coralline algae, barnacles on intertidal rocks, and subtidal sediments. Agauopsis sp. 1, belonging to the ornata group, is allied to three congeneric species in bearing one pectinate seta on tibia II: A. pseudoornata Bartsch, 1985, A. calidictyota Bartsch, 2007, and A. zanzibari Chatterjee, Pesic, Chan & De Troch, 2009. However, Agauopsis sp. 1 is characteristic and distinguished from them by bearing six setae/spines of telofemur of leg II. Agauopsis sp. 2, belonging to the brevipalpus group, most resembles A. novaezelandiae Bartsch, 1986 in sharing the short frontal spine, the shorter rostrum than gnathosomal base, the fourth dorsal seta on the posterior dorsal plate, three pairs of perigenital setae in the female, and 36-37 perigenital and five pairs of subgenital setae in the male. However, Agauopsis sp. 2 is distinguished from it by the different chaetotaxy of leg II, that is, five setae/spines on genu and six on tibia (versus six and seven, respectively, in A. novaezelandiae). We provide description of the two species from Korea with detailed illustrations, and make systematic accounts of them, based on the tabular keys for each of the two species groups. A key to halacarid species of the genus Agauopsis hitherto k