Family CARABODIDAE Koch, 1842

Museums

Regional Maps

• Carabodides Koch, C.L. 1842. Übersicht des Arachnidensystems. Nürnberg : C.H. Zeh'sche. [Vol. 3.].

Introduction

The Carabodidae is a very large family, which includes 48 genera and 345 species world-wide (Schatz et al. 2011). The Australian fauna is poorly known, and includes only three genera and six species, as well as a number of records of unidentified species. The most extensive review of the family was by Mahunka (1986, 1987), and the most important work on the Australian fauna was by Balogh & Mahunka (1978), who described five of the six known species. The family is cosmopolitan, but reaches its highest diversity in the Afrotropical and Neotropical Regions. All species of Carabodidae appear to feed by burrowing inside plant tissue, including decaying wood, lichens, and fungi (Norton & Behan-Pelletier 2009). Stone & Simpson (1990) reported an unidentified species under bark in New South Wales.

General References

Balogh, J. & Mahunka, S. 1978. Data to the Oribatid fauna of Australia (Acari), I. Opuscula Zoologica 15: 31-49

Mahunka, S. 1986. A survey of the family Carabodidae C.L. Koch, 1836 (Acari: Oribatida). Acta Zoologica Hungarica 32: 73–135

Mahunka, S. 1987. A survey of the family Carabodidae C.L. Koch, 1836 (Acari: Oribatida), II. Acta Zoologica Hungarica 33: 399–434

Schatz, H., Behan-Pelletier, V.M., OConnor, B.M. & Norton, R.A. 2011. Suborder Oribatida van der Hammen, 1968. pp. 141–148 in Zhang, Z.-Q. Animal Biodiversity: An Outline of Higher-level Classification and Survey of Taxonomic Richness. Auckland : Magnolia Press.

Stone, C. & Simpson, J.A. 1990. Species associations in Ips grandicollis galleries in Pinus taeda. New Zealand Journal of Forestry Science 20: 75-96.

History of changes