TY - JOUR JF - Acarologia T1 - Scapulaseius asiaticus (Evans) and S. reptans (Blommers) (Mesostigmata: Phytoseiidae): one or two species? VL - 61 IS - 3 SP - 747 EP - 757 PY - 2021 SN - 0044-586X SN - 2107-7207 PB - Les Amis d'Acarologia AU - Kreiter, Serge AU - Ferragut, Francisco UR - https://doi.org/10.24349/tyea-u51Q DO - 10.24349/tyea-u51Q DA - 2021-09-30 ET - 2021-09-30 KW - survey KW - collection KW - predators KW - taxonomy KW - systematics KW - synonymy AB - We compare published morphometric measurements of females and males of Scapulaseius asiaticus (Evans) and S. reptans (Blommers) collected in various countries, with new measurements and character states of type specimens of both species and additional material. The aim is to establish definitively whether the two species are synonyms or not. This paper follows the doubt on the taxonomic status of the former and the hypothesis of conspecificity of the two species formulated by both authors in previous papers concerning Mauritius phytoseiid fauna. Setal and shield measurements were highly similar between species. In addition, other morphological characters previously used to separate these taxa, such as the position of setae R1, showed a wide intraspecific variability, and largely overlapped between populations previously identified as S. asiaticus vs S. reptans. We conclude that the two forms are conspecific and, therefore, S. reptans is herein designated a junior synonym of S. asiaticus. ER -