Family PARHOLASPIDIDAE Evans, 1956

Museums

Regional Maps

• Parholaspinae Evans, G.O. 1956. On the classification of the family Macrochelidae with particular reference to the subfamily Parholaspinae (Acarina - Mesostigmata). Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 127: 345-377 [original spelling].

Introduction

The world fauna of Parholaspididae includes 11 genera and about 100 known species. Krantz (1960) reviewed the classification of the family, but many new taxa have been described since that time. They are found in forest litter and other types of decaying organic matter, where they appear to be predators (Lindquist et al. 2009). The family is very widespread and its species are sometimes abundant, but little is known of their biology. Unlike the other families of Eviphidoidea, none is known to be phoretic. The Australian fauna includes only two known species in one genus. Halliday (1995) described the new genus Neolaspina in the family Parholaspididae, but that genus is now placed in the family Blattisociidae. Unidentified species have been reported by several authors (for example Proctor et al., 2011), and other undescribed or unidentified specimens are present in collections.

General References

Halliday, R.B. 1995. A new genus and two new species of Parholaspididae from Australia and Papua New Guinea (Acarina: Mesostigmata). pp. 209-217 in M.S. Harvey (ed.). Australasian Spiders and Their Relatives: Papers Honouring Barbara York Main. Records of the Western Australian Museum 52(Supplement)

Krantz, G.W. 1960. A re-evaluation of the Parholaspinae Evans 1956 (Acarina: Mesostigmata: Macrochelidae). Acarologia 2: 393–433

Lindquist, E.E., Krantz, G.W. & Walter, D.E. 2009. Order Mesostigmata. pp.124-232 in Krantz, G.W. & Walter, D.E. (eds). A Manual of Acarology. Lubbock, Texas : Texas Tech University Press Third edition, 807 pp.

Proctor, H., Kanowski, J., Catterall, C.P., Wardell-Johnson, G. & Reis, T. 2011. Rainforest-restoration success as judged by assemblages of soil- and litter-dwelling mites (Arachnida: Acari). Zoosymposia 6: 234–254

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