S. Mahunka szerk.: Folia Entomologica Hungarica 48. (Budapest, 1987)

fauna perfectly, based on descriptions made from evolutionary points of view, and not knowing anything of the remaining 90 %, and on the other hand, knowing 90 % of the species based on short, inadequate but identifiable descriptions, I would certainly opt for the second choice. Naturally I accord due respect to the opinion of others who would take the other course. Whatever is our choice, there are two prerequisites for attaining our goal of a successful taxonomic revision: firstly, all taxa have to be examined, except the species so inadequately described that they cannot be identified and secondly, the taxonomist must be familiar with the literature of the studied group. Steffen WOAS' publication: Beitrag zur Revision der Oppioidea sensu Balogh, 1972 (Acari, Oribatei) belongs to the second group of revisions. In the introduction he declares that the followers of the first group, i.e. the taxonomists submerge in the "lack of conception of the classic-formalistic system". He envisages only one way out of this cul-de-sac: "characters are used according to their value and only in contribution with additional characters as Merkmalsbundel (bunches of characters)" Below are some critical comments of this paper. The author chose some 50 arbitrarily selected species descriptions of his as the basis of his revision. The descriptions and drawings are up-to-date, but of the 50 described species only 23 belong to the group Oppioidea sensu BALOGH, 1972. Furthermore, 16 are species collected in Germany and seven from El Salvador. Based on these 23 species, the author synonymized over 100 genera, without examinig the type materials. He removed several other genera from the Oppioidea, again without examining types, and in the end only three valid genera remain: Amerioppia, Oppia and Oppiella (and includes a fourth genus, Suctobelba which, according to him, contains all Suctobetbidae species). It is not customary to carry out such an extensive rearrangement of a systematic group without examining types. There is only one previous example, when SENICZAK (1985) referred all oppioid species known so far into two genera. Thia publication has been politely disregarded by oribatidologists. One must respond to WOAS' work because his work creates chaos in the taxonomy of Oppioidea. In spite of all their shortcomings, the so far published identification keys and descriptions are useful for identifying to the genus , the first supraspecific taxon. If we follow WOAS' work, often it is not even possible to decide which of the three genera a given species belongs to, and within each genus there are several hundred species which creates a chaotic state. The term revision entails progress: the above-mentiwned work, in spite of its evolutionary goals, is nothing but a step backwards in oribatidology . The first and foremost prerequisite of a revision is that is treats all taxa of a group. WOAS' work is more than inadequate from this aspect. There are no subgeneric divisions, species groups. Lacking this, it is impossible to have an overview of the several hundred species. It is unacceptable to lump several hundred species from all over the world by such a superficial treatment. The author contradicts the theory of evolution by omitting to examine the various forms evolved in several biogeographical regions, in the tropics, in deserts. Instead he conjectures that the evolutionary pattern inferred from 17 European and seven Central American Oppiodea species can be generalized to include the whole process of evolution on Earth. By doing so he neglects the diversity that evolution has broutht about and which would have been of great use for his arguments. This, the most serious shortcoming of WOAS' work would have been ameliorated if he had studied the descriptions of other authors from different fauna regions. However, his knowledge of the orlbati dologi cal literature is very meager. Below are some examples. On page 141 WOAS described Arcoppia longiramosa nov. spec, from El Salvador. There is no discussion, differential diagnosis and reference to Neotropical species in the description. So the author apparently did not know that this species had been described by MAHUNKA (1983) from Mexico under the name Oppia cervifer. Let us take another example. On page 179 he asserts that only BERLESE'

s (1904) description of the genus Trizetes is available. On the contrary, SELLNICK, the well-known German acarologist, published a redescription in the well-known German journal, the Zoologischer Anzeiger in 1937, entitled "Die Gattung Trizetes Berlese und ihre Stellung im System der Oribatiden (Acari)". WOAS is apparently só ingorant of the oribatidological literature that he is not even familiar with the literature of his own country. After this it comes as no surprise that he does not know of PÉREZ-INÍGO's (1967) paper, in which he published a redescription of Trizetes with excellent detailed drawings. As is well-known, PEREZ-INIGO has been publishing for over two decades and he is one of the leading specialists of this group in Europe. I think these examples are sufficient to show how unfamiliar with "the literature WOAS is. Besides not }<nowing the literature, WOAS commits himself to untrue statements. On pages 24