Knowledge of the clade Hydrachnidia (Acari, Parasitengona) has increades greatly in recent years due ti the diligence os a small number of dedicated taxonomists. Their efforts have not only resulted in the description of many new taxa but also have shown the great variability of previously described species, such as those belonging to the so called Piona nodata (Müller, 1776) (Pionidae) complex. This complex previously included several subspecies (for a detailed treatment, see Lundblad, 1962) that have, more recently, been raised to the species level (for recent literature, see Smit el al., 2015; Gerecke el al., 2016; and Tuzovskij, 2017). in this work, we describe a new species of the Piona nodata complex on the basis of morphological diagnostic characters discerned from both male and female specimens. The analyzed specimens are morphologically similar to species within the complex yet noticeably depart from the species currently known variability limits with clear identifiable diagnostic characters.

Peer reviewed