REDESCRIPTIONS OF FOUR SPECIES OF THE FEATHER MITE GENUS PTERODECTES ROBIN, 1877 (ACARI: PROCTOPHYLLODIDAE: PTERODECTINAE) DESCRIBED BY HERBERT F. BERLA

摘要

Four species of the feather mite genus Pterodectes Robin, 1877, originally described by H.F. Berla, an early Brazilian acarologist, from various South American passerines are re-described: Pterodectes bilineatus; P. nordestensis; P. turdinus and P. geothlypis. HerbertFranzoniBerla(1912-1985),theprom-inent Brazilian naturalist, was the pioneer in the study of feather mites of Brazilian birds. As a technician of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro, he worked primarily with birds. Since 1940, after his expedition to the Espirito Santo State (Brazil), he started to accumulate feather mite samples from the skins in his ornithological collection (Pacheco and Parrini 1999). In 13 papers on feather mites, he described one new family, 13 new genera, and 42new species. Unfortunately, at that time, Berla had neither high experience in acarology nor skillful colleagues to provide him any help. As a consequence, his morphological descriptions and some drawings were not sufficient for taxon diagnostics.