Family MICROPSAMMIDAE Coineau & Theron, 1983

Museums

Regional Maps

• Micropsammidae Coineau, Y. & Theron, P. 1983. Les Micropsammidae, n. fam. d'acariens Endeostigmata des sables fins. Acarologia 24: 275-280.

Introduction

The family Micropsammidae is known from Australia only from records of unidentified species of Micropsammus, recorded by Noble et al. (1990, 1996) and Majer et al. (2013). The family includes only one described species, as well as a number of undescribed taxa. They are minute mites that could easily be overlooked, and further taxa may remain to be discovered. Species of Micropsammus have strong crushing chelicerae that are used for feeding on fungal hyphae (Walter 2009).

General References

Majer, J.D., Callan, S.K., Edwards, K., Gunawardene, N.R. & Taylor, C.K. 2013. Baseline survey of the terrestrial invertebrate fauna of Barrow Island. Records of the Western Australian Museum, Supplement 83: 13-112.

Noble, J.C., Kaliszewski, M. & Whitford, W.G. 1990. Soil Acari from burnt and unburnt mallee habitats in western New South Wales. pp. 224-225 in Noble, J.C., Joss, P.J. & Jones, G.K. (eds). The Mallee Lands: A Conservation Perspective. Melbourne : CSIRO Publications.

Noble, J.C., Tongway, D.J., Roper, M.M. & Whitford, W.G. 1996. Fire studies in mallee (Eucalyptus spp.) communities of western New South Wales: spatial and temporal fluxes in soil chemistry and soil biology following prescribed fire. Pacific Conservation Biology 2: 398-413

Walter, D.E. 2009. Suborder Endeostigmata. pp. 421-429 in Krantz, G.W. & Walter, D.E. (eds). A Manual of Acarology. Lubbock, Texas : Texas Tech University Press Third edition, 807 pp.

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