Revision of the African chigger mite genus Hyracarus (Acariformes: Trombiculidae: Leeuwenhoekiinae)

Chigger mite genus Hyracarus Lawrence, 1949, endemic to Tropical Africa, was revised based on the examination of type series, new materials, unpublished archive sources, and the literature. Five new species were described: Hyracarus bethuliensis sp. nov., H. ethiopicus sp. nov., H. sabiensis sp. nov., H. aryanicki sp. nov., and H. limpopoensis sp. nov. Three new subjective synonyms were established: Hyracarus [= Mastalacarus Goff & Lukoschus, 1983, syn. nov.; = Tateracarus Goff, 1983, syn. nov.] and Hyracarus thallomyia (Radford, 1947) [= Acomatacarus lawrencei Radford, 1948, syn. nov.]. Six new combinations were proposed: Hyracarus foliosetosus (Stekolnikov & Matthee, 2022) comb. (originally in the genus Tateracarus), H. namibiensis (Goff & Lukoschus, 1983) comb. nov. (originally in the genus Mastalacarus), H. thallomyia (Radford, 1947) comb. nov., and H. mutabilis (Vercammen-Grandjean & Brennan, 1957) comb. nov. (originally in the genus Acomatacarus Ewing, 1942). Currently, the genus includes 16 valid species known from South Africa (10 species), Namibia (2), Angola (1), Democratic Republic of the Congo (1), Uganda (1), and Ethiopia (1). Its species parasitize murid rodents (7 records), hyraxes (3), elephant shrews (2), dormice (1), shrews (1), bats (1), and skinks (1).