A new species of Carabodes ( Acariformes : Carabodidae ) from Venezuela

A new species, Carabodes venezolanus is described from Venezuela. A comparison with related species and genera is done.

are preserved in a slide with "Hoyer"): Venezuela, Isla Margarita, Cerro El Copey National Park (600 m above sea level).Litter and earth under a "copey" tree (Ficus sp. a common species of strangler fig).May, 12, 1994. E. Ruiz leg.All the specimens are stored in the collection of the Department of Entomology (Biological Sciences Facultry, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain).
Derivatio nominis: specific epithet is after Venezuela, the country where it was found.
Integument.Generally well sclerotized, yellowish ochre and covered by a cryptic coat made with sorrounding particles.
Prodorsum (Fig. 1A): wide, without any sculpture except in the lateral regions which are slightly foveate.The lamellae are very lateralized, being rather narrow.Lamellar setae are inserted at the anterior part of the lamellae, being strong, arched and barbed on its convex surface.Rostral setae are strong and smooth being inserted between the lamellar setae.Bothridia laterally opened and located in the posterior part of the prodorsum, at its outer margins.Sensillus with a thick and medium lengthed tail, bulked and curved at its end forming a brush shaped head which is densely barbed on its convex side (scopate sensillus).Interlamellar setae spoon shaped, densely barbed on convex surface and similar to notogastral setae.
Notogaster: short and wide, almost square.Dorsosejugal suture with straight anterior margin, without any separation between prodorsum and notogaster.Surface tuberculate; tubercles with an irregular distribution.Notogaster is convex in its anterior and medial parts but it is clearly flattened in its posterior part (Fig. 1D).Perhaps this feature is related with the peculiar distribution of the ten pairs of notogastral setae.These setae (Fig. 1B) are very similar to interlamellar setae, and some of them are more or less moved from their theorical position.Pair h 1 is moved forwards and so this pair is close to pair lp.Pair h 2 are also moved forwards.Setae p 1 , p 2 , p 3 and h 3 are aligned at the lateral and posterior margins.
The ventral region (Fig. 1C) has a thin cerotegumentary granulation.Epimeral setae are simple, setiform, short and smooth.Epimeral setal formula 1,1,3,3 being pairs 1 b and 1 c absent.Genital plates are smaller than anal plates being clearly separated (slightly more than the length of genital plates).Genital plates have four pairs of short, thin and small setae aligned in the inner margin of each plate, more or less equidistant.Two pairs of smooth and thin anal setae slightly longer than genital setae.The ventral plate is foveate mainly at its lateral margins.One pair of adgenital setae smooth and thin.Three pairs of adanal setae spoon shaped as interlamellar and notogastral setae although adanal setae are slightly smaller.
Legs are similar to that of the "minusculus" species group as C. minusculus Berlese, 1923or C. willmani Bernini, 1975, having the solenidia II, III and IV short, but in C. vene-zolanus these solenidia are even shorther, wider and with rounded tip.

DISCUSSION
C. venezolanus is similar to Klapperiches littoristicus described by Reeves (1997) from Southern Florida; K. littoristicus has also a tuberculate notogaster and its notogastral setae are spoon shaped too (although pairs h 1 and h 2 are not moved forwards as it occurs in C. venezolanus).But Reeves described his species into the genus Klapperiches proposed by Mahunka (1978) for K. nigrosetosus from Dominican Republic.Following Mahunka's description the diagnostic characters of Klapperiches are: (1) Genital plates are moved towards the anal plates being close together.(2) Adgenital setae absent.
K. littoristicus has feature (1) but not (2).In C. venezolanus adgenital setae are present and genital plates are far from anal plates (more than the length of genital plates).So we think that K. littoristicus belongs to the genus Carabodes C.L. Koch, 1835 and we think that separation between both genera is doubtful.
The new species is different from Carabodes littoristicus (Reeves, 1997) n.comb.for the following features: Recently, Mahunka (1996) described from Borneo the monotypic genus Bakobodes.This carabodid has 10 pairs of notogastral setae, being some of them more or less moved from their theorical position; its notogastral anterior margin is straight (without any separation between prodorsum and notogaster), the notogaster is convex in its anterior and medial parts but it is clearly flattened in its posterior part.All these features agree with C. venezolanus but in any case Bakobodes orangutan Mahunka, 1996 (the type species) is very different from C. venezolanus concerning the prodorsum shape and having a different distribution and shape of the body setae.So, until the systematic of the family Carabodidae C.L. Koch, 1837 becomes clearer and the real value of the features used in the generic separation is resolved, we prefer not introducing more confusion in this family and describe the new species as belonging to Carabodes.