Family HYDRACHNIDAE Leach, 1815

Museums

Regional Maps

• Hydrachnides Leach, W.E. 1815. A tabular view of the external characters of four classes of animals, which Linné arranged under Insecta; with the distribution of the genera composing three of these classes into orders &c. and descriptions of several new genera and species. Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 11: 306-400.

Introduction

The family Hydrachnidae includes a single large cosmopolitan genus of aquatic mites that occur in pools and lakes, including temporary pools. The adults are large red-coloured predators, and the larvae are parasites that attack a range of aquatic Coleoptera and Hemiptera (Harvey 1998; Walter et al. 2009). The genus Hydrachna has been divided into a series of subgenera, but the distinctions among subgenera are not stable, and they are not used here. The Australian fauna includes 17 species, most of which were described by Lundblad (1941, 1947), and which were catalogued by Viets (1987). Further species and discussion of the genus were added by Smit (2014).

Viets (1981) recorded Hydrachna similans Marshall from the Northen Territory, but this was a misidentification (Smit, 2014).

Excluded Taxa

Misidentifications

HYDRACHNIDAE: Hydrachna similans Marshall, 1928 — Viets, K.O. 1981. Wassermilben (Acari, Hydrachnellae) aus dem Northern Territory, Australia. Entomologica Scandinavica. Supplementum 15: 333-336

General References

Harvey, M.S. 1998. The Australian Water Mites. A Guide to the Families and Genera. Melbourne : CSIRO Publishing 150 pp.

Lundblad, O. 1941. Neue Wassermilben aus Amerika, Afrika, Asien und Australien. Zoologischer Anzeiger 133: 155-160

Lundblad, O. 1947. Zur Kenntnis australischer Wassermilben. Arkiv för Zoologi 40A(2): 1-82 pls I-IX

Smit, H. 2014. Australian water mites of the genus Hydrachna Müller, with the description of five new species (Acari: Hydrachnidia: Hydrachnidae). Zootaxa 3827(2): 170-186.

Walter, D.E., Lindquist, E.E., Smith, I.M., Cook, D.R. & Krantz, G.W. 2009. Order Trombidiformes. pp. 233-420 in Krantz, G.W. & Walter, D.E. (eds). A Manual of Acarology. Lubbock, Texas : Texas Tech University Press Third edition, 807 pp.

History of changes