Eryngiopus Summers

Genus: Eryngiopus Summers

Eryngiopus Summers, 1964: 186 .

Type species: Eryngiopus gracilis Summers, 1964 .

Diagnosis based on Fan & Zhang (2005).

In the present study, the species of genus Eryngiopus are categorized into two species groups based on the number of prodorsal setae ( Table 1); 1) species group bakeri having three pairs of prodorsal setae ( vi, ve and sci) including nine species reported from Turkey, Egypt,

Yemen, Thailand, China, South Africa and USA; 2) species group gracilis having four pairs of prodorsal setae ( vi, ve, sci and sce) comprising 22 species mostly reported from USA, New

Zealand, Italy, South Africa, China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Iran, Pakistan and India ( Doğan et al.,

2015, Fan et al., 2016).

Number of prodorsal setae, either 3 pairs ( vi, ve, sci) or four pairs ( vi, ve, sci, sce) ( Table 1),

is strong and constant morphological character to categorize the species Eryngiopus of into two species groups. Vacante & Gerson (1988) used number of prodorsal setae (three/four) pairs as an important and basic character to develop a key to 17 world species of Eryngiopus . Also, Van

Dis & Ueckermann (1993) separated the Afrotropical Eryngiopus species and used number of prodorsal setae (three/four) pairs as the first couplet in the key.