First record of Leptus sp . Latreille , 1796 ( Acari : Erythraeidae ) from Itaipuaçu beach , Maricá , RJ , Brazil

First record of larvae from genus Leptus (Acari: Erythraeidae) in Itaipuacu beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Mite larvae were collected from flies captured with traps made with plastic bottles (Cunha and Lomônaco 1996), with raw fish as bait, in February and April 2011.The specimens were cleared in lactophenol for identification.Semi-permanent slide mounts were made using Hoyer's mounting media as preservative (Flechtmann 1973) and examined under optical light microscopy.Each specimen was identified at genus level following Krantz and Walter (2009), and was similar to mite larvae observed by Flechtmann (1980) that described the larval stage as Erythraeid mites from genus Leptus Latreille 1796 have more than 80 cosmopolitan species widespread in the World (Haitlinger 2006).In the Neotropical and Neartic regions, 36 species are known (Southcott 1992;Haitlinger 2000).The species of this genus have 7 larval stages.The life cycle of parasitic larval stages of Leptus sp.includes arthropods as host, while nymphs and adults are free living (Southcott 1992;Haitlinger 2000;McAloon and Durden 2000).
The present note reports the first occurrence of Leptus sp.larvae in Itaipuaçu beach, located at an impacted rural area of Rio de Janeiro, southeastern Brazil (22°58′0″ S, 43°1′0″ N).This beach is situated about 13 km east of the entrance to Guanabara Bay and has a length of approximately 10 km of orientation east to west and is bounded to the west by Elephant Rock and east by the Itaipuaçu Pontal (Silva et al. 2008).Four mite larvae were found attached to the gena (Figure 1), leg (Figure 2), abdomen, and thorax of a single specimen of T. (S.) femoralis.
In Central America mite larvae from Leptus sp. have been reported for Panamá in association with arthropods from human corpses (Bermúdez and Pachar 2010) and with blowflies (Calliphoridae: Diptera) (Miranda and Bermúdez 2008).
This genus occurs in three countries from South America: Colombia, Peru and Brazil.
In Colombia, Leptus ariel Southcott 1989 is related to A. mellifera (Morales 1995).Losada (1947) was the first author to verify this genus parasitizing honeybees for this country.
In Peru 14 mites larvae from Leptus sp. were recovered from intersegmental membranes of the abdominal tergites and sternites of honeybees from Cerro de Pasco city (Flechtmann 1980).
In Brazil Pereira et al. (2012) collected Leptus sp. in association with predatory and phytophagous Heteroptera bugs in a secondary Forest in Viçosa, Minas Gerais state.Three species from genus Leptus were associated with canopy tangerine in Montenegro, Rio Grande do Sul state (Morais et al. 2007).The first association between Leptus sp.larvae and honeybees in this country was reported for São José dos Campos, São Paulo state (Teixeira 2011).
This note is the first record of larvae mite from genus Leptus both for Itaipuaçu district as parasitizing T. (S.) femoralis.This new record extends the geographic distribution of Leptus sp. and reinforces the need to spend more research effort on the fields of ecology and zoogeography of this genus.