Chigger mites (Acariformes: Trombiculidae) of Chiloé Island, Chile, with descriptions of two new species and new data on the genus Herpetacarus

Silva-De La Fuente M.C., Stekolnikov A.A., Weitzel T., Beltrami E., Martínez-Valdebenito C., Abarca K., Acosta-Jamett G.

Journal of Medical Entomology, 58 (2): 646-657 (2021).

S U M M A R Y

Three species of chigger mites are recorded in our collections from four species of cricetid rodents on Chiloé Island (southern Chile, Los Lagos Region), an area endemic to scrub typhus (Orientia sp.). Two species are described as new — Herpetacarus (Abonnencia) eloisae sp. nov. and Quadraseta chiloensis sp. nov. One species, Paratrombicula goffi Stekolnikov and González-Acuña 2012, is for the first time recorded on a mammal host (one species of cricetid rodent), and its distribution is extended to the Los Lagos Region of Chile. The genus Proschoengastia Vercammen-Grandjean, 1967 is synonymized with the subgenus Herpetacarus (Abonnencia) Vercammen-Grandjean, 1960, and four new combinations are established: Herpetacarus (Abonnencia) herniosa (Brennan and Jones, 1961), comb. nov., Herpetacarus (Abonnencia) insolita (Brennan and Jones, 1961), comb. nov., Herpetacarus (Abonnencia) macrochaeta (Brennan and Jones, 1961), comb. nov., and Herpetacarus (Abonnencia) antarctica (Stekolnikov and Gonzalez-Acuña, 2015), comb. nov.