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Abstract
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The genus Aceria Keifer, 1944 includes the highest number of species within the superfamily Eriophyoidea. Summarizing the current literature, around 1000 name species have been assigned to this genus. The taxonomic status of many of them needs further clarifications. Until now, 68 Aceria spp. have been recorded in Iran. During the study on Eriophyoids in southwest of East Azerbaijan province (Iran), Aceria zygofabae n. sp. and Aceria alkannae n. sp. were found and are here described and illustrated, respectively from Zygophyllum fabago L. (Zygophyllaceae) and Alkanna bracteosa Boiss. (Boraginaceae). Six eriophyoid species were recorded on plants of family Zygophyllaceae and three of them belong to Aceria. Aceria zygofabae n. sp. has no similarity with these species. The new species shows some similarities with Aceria novellae Denizhan et al., 2007 collected from Hedysarum sp. (Fabaceae) in Turkey and they differ in the pattern of prodorsal shield, coxal ornamentation, empodial rays and length of setae sc, e and 3a. Aceria alkannae n. sp. was compared with 10 known Aceria species collected from other Boraginaceae plants and shows similarities with Aceria echii (Canestrini, 1891) collected from Echium vulgare L. Differences between these two species (according to A. echii sensu Farkas, 1965) concern the prodorsal shield pattern, frontal lobe presence, number of annuli, empodial rays and length of sc setae. This is the first record of an Aceria species on a Zygophyllum sp. and Alkanna. In addition, five more Aceria species were identified, including A. eucricotes (Nalepa, 1892), A. cynodonis Wilson, 1959, A. tosichella Keifer, 1969, A. chenopodia Xue, Sadeghi & Hong, 2009 and A. tristriata (Nalepa, 1890) (protogyne and deutogyne). Among them, A. cynodonis and A. tosichella are new records for Iran eriophyoid fauna.
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