Family NANORCHESTIDAE Grandjean, 1937

Museums

Regional Maps

• Nanorchestidae Grandjean, F. 1937. Le genre Pachygnathus Dugès (Alycus Koch) (Acariens). Cinquième et dernière partie. Bulletin du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris [published 1907-1971] 9: 262-269.

Introduction

Mites in the family Nanorchestidae have often been collected in Australian soils, but they are very small and difficult to identify. For that reason there are many records of unidentified species. Only three species have been described, all in the genus Nanorchestes. Two other genera are represented by unidentified or undescribed species. There has been no general study of the Australian fauna since Womersley (1944). References to unidentified species are listed for each genus, and unidentified Nanorchestidae were also reported by Heatwole et al. (1981) and Callan et al. (2011). Nanorchestidae are fluid-feeders, and one species has been observed to feed on algae (Walter 2009).

General References

Callan, S.K., Majer, J.D., Edwards, K. & Moro, D. 2011. Documenting the terrestrial invertebrate fauna of Barrow Island, Western Australia. Australian Journal of Entomology 50: 323–343

Heatwole, H., Done, T. & Cameron, E. 1981. Community Ecology of a Coral Cay: A study of One-Tree Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia. The Hague : W. Junk 379 pp.

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.

Womersley, H. 1944. Australian Acarina, families Alycidae and Nanorchestidae. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 68: 133-143

History of changes