Abstract
Six new species of oribatid mite belonging to the genus Crotonia are described from wet forests in Victoria, Australia. Crotonia alpina sp. nov., C. cornuta sp. nov. and C. victoriae sp. nov. belong to the Capistrata species-group, having the full complement of notogastral setae in the c series; whilst C. momitoi sp. nov., C. blacki sp. nov. and C. gadubanudi sp. nov. are members of the Cophinaria species-group, lacking setae c 2 . The fossil species Crotonia ramus (Womersley, 1957), also a member of the Cophinaria group, is redescribed from Tertiary Kauri pine resin (Agathis yallournensis). The new members of the Capistrata group share an unique combination of characters, including long flagelliform setae c 3 , shorter setiform c 2 and with setae c 3 the shortest of the c series; lateral strips of the notogastral shield ornamented with fields of tubercles; narrow, blunt bothridial auriculae and elongate parallel apophyses of setae h 2 projecting horizontally. The morphological homogeneity of this cluster of species is mirrored by the members of the Cophinaria species-group described herein which, together with C. pyemaireneri Colloff, 2009 and C. tasmanica Łochyńska, 2008 from Tasmania, plus C. jethurmerae Lee, 1985 from South Australia, share relatively well-developed setae d 2 , a porose notogastral shield with narrow lateral tuberculate strips; elongate, acute bothridial auriculae; long, flagelliform setae p 1 and relatively short apophyses of setae h 2 , divergent apically, and projecting posteriodorsally. The Victorian members of the Capistrata andCophinaria species-groups represent two homogeneous clusters of species associated with temperate rainforest refugia and wet sclerophyll forest in high-rainfall zones. An identification key is provided to the Australian species of Crotonia.References
Cameron, D.G. (1987) Temperate rainforests of East Gippsland. In: The Rainforest Legacy. Australian National Rainforests Study. Volume 1 - The Nature, Distribution and Status of Rainforest Types. Special Australian Heritage Publication Series Number 7(1), Australian Heritage Commission, Canberra, pp. 33–46.
Colloff, M.J. (1990) New species of Crotonia (Acari: Oribatida) from South Africa. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 100, 403–419.
Colloff, M.J. (1993) A taxonomic revision of the oribatid mite genus Camisia (Acari: Oribatida). Journal of Natural History, 27, 1325–1408.
Colloff, M.J. (2009a) New species of Crotonia (Acari: Oribatida) from Tasmanian Rainforest, and the habitat preferences of Crotoniidae. Zootaxa, 2027, 43–54.
Colloff, M.J. (2009b) Species-group concepts and biogeography of the genus Crotonia (Acari: Oribatida: Crotoniidae), with new species from South and Central America. Zootaxa, 2081, 1–30.
Colloff, M.J. & Cameron, S.L. (2009) Revision of the oribatid mite genus Austronothrus Hammer (Acari: Oribatida): sexual dimorphism and a re-evaluation of the phylogenetic relationships of the family Crotoniidae. Invertebrate Systematics, 23, 87–110.
Department of Sustainability and Environment (2005) Victoria’s State of the Forests Report 2003. Department of Sustainability and Environment, Melbourne.
Domes, K., Norton, R.A., Maraun, M. & Scheu, S. (2007) Reevolution of sexuality breaks Dollo's law. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104, 7139–7144.
Ferro, D.N. & Southwick, E.E. (1984) Microclimates of small arthropods: estimating humidity within the leaf boundary layer. Environmental Entomology, 13, 926–929.
Gallagher, S.J., Greenwood, D.R., Taylor, D., Smith, A.J., Wallace, M.W. & Holdgate, G.R. (2003) The Pliocene climatic and environmental evolution of southeastern Australia: evidence from the marine and terrestrial realm. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 193, 349–382.
Greenwood, D.R., Vadala, A.J. & Douglas, J.G. (2000) Victorian Palaeogene and Neogene macrofloras: a conspectus. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 112, 65–92.
Hammer, M. (1966) Investigations on the Oribatid Fauna of New Zealand. Part I. Biologiske Skrifter det Kongelige Dansk Videnskabernes Selskab, 15(2), 1–56.
Hill, R.S. (2004) Origins of the southeastern Australian vegetation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, series B, 359, 1537–1549.
Hill, R.S., Lewis, T., Carpenter, R.J. & Whang, S.S. (2008) Agathis (Auraucariaceae) macrofossils from Cainozoic sediments in south-eastern Australia. Australian Systematic Botany, 21, 162–177.
Hills, E.S. (1957) Fossiliferous Tertiary resin from Allendale, Victoria. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 69, 15–20.
Hunt, G. S., Norton, R. A., Kelly, J. P. H., Colloff, M.J. & Lindsay, S. M. (1998). Oribatid Mites: An Interactive Glossary of Oribatid Mites, CD-ROM. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.
Kershaw, A.P., Martin, H.A. & McEwan Mason, J.R.C. (1994) The Neogene: a period of transition. In: Hill, R.S. (ed.) History of the Australian Vegetation: Cretaceous to Recent. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 299–327.
Lee, D. C. (1985) Sarcoptiformes (Acari) of South Australian soils. 4. Primitive oribate mites (Cryptostigmata) with an extensive, unfissured hysteronotal shield and aptychoid. Records of the South Australian Museum, 19, 39–67.
Łochyńska, M. (2008a) The morphology and development of a Brazilian Crotoniidae (Acari, Oribatida). In: Bertrand, M., Kreiter, S., McCoy, K.D., Migeon, A., Navajas, M., Tixier, M.-S. & Vial, L. (eds.) Integrative Acarology. Proceedings of the 6th European Congress. European Association of Acarologists, Montpellier, pp. 98–107. [CD]
Łochyńska, M. (2008b) A new species of Crotonia from New Zealand (Acari: Oribatida: Crotoniidae). Genus, 19, 819–826.
Łochyńska, M. (2008c) The ontogenetic description of three crotoniid mites (Acari: Oribatida: Crotoniidae) from the Australian region. Annales Zoologici, 58, 831–855.
Luxton, M. (1982) Species of the genus Crotonia (Acari: Cryptostigmata) from New Zealand. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 76, 243–271.
Luxton, M. (1987) New mites of the family Crotoniidae (Acari: Cryptostigmata) from Northern Queensland. Acarologia, 28, 381–388.
Native Forests Action Council (1983) The Forests of East Gippsland. Native Forests Action Council, Melbourne, 32 pp.
Norton, R.A. & Behan-Pelletier, V.M. (2009) Suborder Oribatida. In: Krantz, G.W. and Walter, D.E. (eds.) A Manual of Acarology. Third edition. Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock, Texas, pp. 430–564.
Olszanowski, Z. (1996) A monograph of the Nothridae and Camisiidae of Poland (Acari: Oribatida: Crotonioidea). Genus (Supplement), Wroclaw, 201 pp.
Olszanowski, Z. (2000) Two new Australian species of Crotonia (Acari: Oribatida) with new records of Crotonioidea from the Australasian region. Acta Zoologicae Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 46, 239–248.
Patton, R.T. (1956) Appendix I. Green leaf from fossil resin, Allendale, Victoria. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 69, 18–19.
Ramsay, G. W. & Luxton, M. (1967) A redescription of the type specimen of Crotonia (= Acronothrus) obtecta (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1875), (Acari, Cryptostigmata) and a discussion of its taxonomic relationships. Journal of Natural History, 4, 473–480.
Pullen, K. (1985) Some beetles from the Goonmirk Range, East Gippsland. Victorian Entomologist, 15, 64–66.
Seniczak, S. (1991) The morphology of juvenile stages of moss mites of the family Camisiidae (Acari: Oribatida). IV. Zoologischer Anzeiger, 226, 267–279.
Wallwork, J. A. (1977) On the genus Crotonia Thorell 1876 (Acari: Cryptostigmata) Acarologia, 19, 513–539.
Woas, S. (2002) Acari: Oribatida. In: Adis J. (ed.). Amazonian Arachnida and Myriapoda. Pensoft Publishers, Sofia, pp. 21–291.
Womersley, H. (1957) A fossil mite (Acronothrus ramus n. sp.) from Cainozoic resin at Allendale, Victoria. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 69, 21–23.