Amblyseiella setosa Muma, 1955

Amblyseiella setosa Muma View in CoL

One female of this species was collected from S. officinalis at Al-Hekr, May 2024. This is the first report of this species from Syria. It was considered a senior synonym of A. denmarki (El-Borolossy) and A. rusticana (Athias-Henriot) ( Chant and McMurtry 2007) . Except for setae j1: 28 and j3: 53, which are slightly shorter in Syrian specimen, measurements of the

Syrian female match those in the redescriptions by Porath and Swirski (1965), and Ferragut et al. (2010). Kolodochka and Omeri (2010) differentiated A. antonii Kolodochka and Omeri from A. setosa and its synonym A. denmarki by having many shorter idiosomal setae z (2, z4, S2, Z4, R1, and JV5). However, the length of the setae mentioned above in A. antonii falls within the range of A. setosa , and a variation of about 20-40% in the length of several dorsal setae in A. setosa seems to be present even within the same population ( Porath and Swirski 1965 ; Ferragut et al. 2010). Thus, A. antonii could be a junior synonym of A. setosa . An examination of the type specimen of A. antonii (which was not possible in the present work) is required to reach a definitive conclusion.