Rotundabaloghia (Circobaloghia) nagyi sp. nov., a New Uropodina Mite Species from a Bamboo Thicket (Acari: Mesostigmata)

A new species (Rotundabaloghia (Circobaloghia)nagyi sp. nov.) of the rotundabaloghid mites is described based on females and male collected in bamboo leaf litter in Cameroon. The new species differs from the other Afrotropical rotundabaloghid mites in following character combination: female genital shield with long apical process, the setae v7 and v8 long and pilose, v6 long and smooth, v2 short and needle-like, female genital, dorsal and ventral shields are ornamented by irregular pits, sternal setae short and needle-like. This character combination is unknown within the African rotundabaloghids.

The family Rotundabaloghidae is one of the intensively studied groups within the Uropodina mites with more than 120 described species from the tropics. The members of the large and widely distributed subgenus Rotundabaloghia (Circobaloghia) occur in all the tropics; Circobaloghia species are reported from Neotropical, Afrotropical and Oriental regions (Kontschán 2010).
The West-African sub-region is a poorly investigated part of the Ethiopian realm from rotundabaloghid mite point of view. Rotundabaloghid mites from this sub-region are presented only from Cameroon, Ghana, Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Togo and Sierra Leone and till today only 15 species are reported (Kontschán 2010(Kontschán , 2019a(Kontschán , 2020a.
During the study on the African Uropodina mites based on the investigation of the Arachnida collection of the Natural History Museum in Geneva (Kontschán and Starý 2014, 2015, Kontschán 2019a, 2020a by the senior author, an unknown rotundabaloghid mite were found in an unsorted bamboo leaf litter sample from Cameroon, which is described as new species herein.

Materials and Methods
Specimens of the new rotundabaloghid mite were placed into lactic acid for a week, after the investigation, all specimens are stored in ethanol and deposited in the Natural History Museum in Geneva, Switzerland (MHNG). The drawings were made with the aid of a drawing tube of Leica 1000 scientific microscope. Abbreviations: st=sternal setae, ad=adanal setae, v=ventral setae, lf=lyriform fissure, p=pore-like organ. All measurements and the scales in the figures are given in micrometres (μm).
Stigmata situated between coxae II and III. Peritremes without poststigmatid part and a longer hook-shaped prestigmatid part. Genital shield wide, scutiform (120-125 long and 67-72 wide at base), with a long (ca 27-32) apical process. Surface of genital shield with irregular pits. Pedofossae deep, their surface smooth, separate furrows for tarsi IV present. Base of tritosternum narrow, vase-like, tritosternal laciniae smooth, subdivided into three smooth branches in its distal half. Gnathosoma. Corniculi horn-like, internal malae smooth and as long as corniculi. Hypostomal setae smooth and needle-like. Apical part of epistome marginally pilose. Palp with smooth setae. Fixed digit of chelicerae longer than movable digit and both digits bearing one central tooth. Internal sclerotized node present.
Legs (Figs 3a-d). First leg without claws and ambulacrum, all legs bearing smooth and needle-like setae. All femora bearing flap-like ventral processes. . Length of idiosoma 370 width 340. Dorsal idiosoma. Ornamentation and chaetotaxy of dorsal shield as for female. Ventral idiosoma (Fig. 3e). Four pairs of sternal setae situated anterior to genital shield, all sternal setae short (ca 8-10), smooth and needle-like. Two pairs of poroids situated on sternal shield, first pair close to st4, second pair close to v2. Surface of sternal shield covered by irregular pits. Surface of ventral shield, and shape and size of ventral Larva and nymphs unknown.
Etymology. The new species is dedicated to doyen of the Hungarian plant protection zoology, the Orthoptera specialist, Dr. Barnabás Nagy .
Remark. The new species is similar to R. (C.) campanellae Hirschmann, 1992. Both species have pilose v7 and v8 setae, but the sternal setae are short on the new species and long on the R. (C.) campanellae. Setae v2 are similar in shape and length to v6 in the case of the known species and v2 three or four times shorter than setae v6 on R. (C.) nagyi.
Notes to the habitat. In the last years some bamboo groove inhabiting Uropodina were discovered and described (Kontschán, 2019b, Kontschán et al., 2015a from Asia. The African bamboo associated leaf litter dwelling mite is absolutely unknown, the now described species was mentioned on the collection label as from mount Bambonto from the thicket of bamboo Arundinaria. Arundinaria is a monotypic bamboo genus in North-America, therefore we need to suppose the above mentioned Arundinaria bamboo is the same as Yushania alpina (earlier A. alpina) which is native in the mountains of Cameroon and dominating dense thickets and forests on slopes between 2000-3000 m altitude also in East-African mountains.

Zoogeographical notes
The West-African sub-region of the Ethiopian realm belongs to the poorly inves-  , 1992). No other rotundabaloghid mites are presented from other countries of this sub-region.