First record of the genus Lamellarea (Acari, Oribatida, Lamellareidae) from the Neotropical region

A new species of Lamellarea (Oribatida, Lamellareidae) is described from hick twigs of southern live oak in Florida, U.S.A. (part of the Neotropical region). Lamellarea americana sp. nov. differs from most similar species, Lamellarea digitata and L. forceps by the ventrally inserted lamellar setae, the number of genital setae, the length of interlamellar setae, and the body size. Remarks on generic diagnosis and distribution of Lamellarea are presented.


Introduction
The oribatid mite genus Lamellarea (Acari, Oribatida, Lamellareidae) was proposed by Kok (1968) with Lamellarea ardua Kok, 1968 as type species. At present, the genus comprises five species, all of which are distributed in the Ethiopian region (Subías 2019).
In the course of taxonomic identification of oribatid mites from Florida (U.S.A.), which I received from the personal collection of Prof. Dr. Roy A. Norton (State University of New York, Syracuse, U.S.A.), I found a new species of Lamellarea (sixth representative of the genus). The main goal of this paper is to describe and illustrate this new species.
The main diagnostic characters, an identification key, distribution and habitat of Lamellarea were summarized by Ermilov et al. (2017).

Methods
Specimens were mounted in lactic acid on temporary cavity slides for measurement and illustration. All body measurements are presented in micrometers. Drawings were made with a camera lucida using a Leica transmission light microscope "Leica DM 2500".

General remarks
The diagnostic traits of Lamellarea were presented by Ermilov et al. (2017) referring to five pairs of genital setae, insertions of lamellar setae in anterolateral parts of the lamellar cusps and the presence of translamella. However, in L. americana sp. nov. only four pairs of genital setae, the insertions of lamellar setae located on ventral side of the lamellar cusps, and the translamella is interrupted medially. Therefore, these morphological variations should be included in the generic diagnosis of Lamellarea. So far, the known oribatid mite species of Lamellarea were distributed only in South Africa and Lesotho (Kok 1968;Coetzee 1987;Ermilov et al. 2017). Thus, the present new species from Neotropical U.S.A. is the first representative of this genus found from outside of the Ethiopian region.