Spinturnix dasycnemi (Acari: Spinturnicidae) – a poorly known Palaearctic bat mite: first records in Poland and morphometric separation from two other species of the myoti group

Spinturnix dasycnemi (Kolenati, 1856), an ectoparasite considered to be specific to rare and local bat species Myotis dasycneme (Boie, 1825), is reported for the first time in the fauna of Poland. Specimens were collected from M. dasycneme at two localities in the north and central parts of the country. In Europe, only two males of that poorly known mite species have been recorded recently from the Netherlands and Slovakia, while spinturnicids from pond bats were identified as S. andegavina and/or S. myoti in most of previous studies. The exact geographic distribution of S. dasycnemi is unknown, mainly due to the possibility of its common confusion with other mite species, but it may occur in all countries hosting populations of M. dasycneme. We show that specimens of both sexes of S. dasycnemi are morphometrically clearly separable from those of S. myoti and S. andegavina, even based on a combination of idiosoma length and dorsal shield length.