Family PEDICULOCHELIDAE Lavoipierre, 1946

Museums

Regional Maps

• Pediculochelidae Lavoipierre, M.M.J. 1946. A new acarine parasite of bees. Nature (London) 158: 130-131.

Introduction

The family Pediculochelidae includes a single genus with seven species (Schatz et al. 2011), which have been found in China, Russia, Europe, USA, and South Africa (Subias 2011). They occur in dry soil, and have also been found in the nests of bees, rats and chickens (Norton & Behan-Pelletier 2009). The morphology and classification of the family were reviewed in detail by Norton et al. (1983). The Australian fauna includes only a single identified species. The record is based on a single specimen from leaf litter in Western Australia, and there appears to some ambiguity about its identification (Colloff & Halliday 1998). Unidentified species of Paralycus have also been recorded from Australia a number of times (for example Majer et al., 2013), and unidentified Pediculochelidae were also reported by Heatwole et al. (1981).

General References

Colloff, M.J. & Halliday, R.B. 1998. Oribatid Mites: A Catalogue of the Australian Genera and Species. Melbourne : CSIRO Publications.

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.

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.

Norton, R.A., OConnor, B.M. & Johnston, D.E. 1983. Systematic relationships of the Pediculochelidae (Acari : Acariformes). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 85: 493-512

Norton, R.A. & Behan-Pelletier, V.M. 2009. Suborder Oribatida. pp. 430–564 in Krantz, G.W. & Walter, D.E. (eds). A Manual of Acarology. Lubbock, Texas : Texas Tech University Press Third edition, 807 pp.

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.

Subias, L.S February 2011. Listado sistemático, sinonímico y biogeográfico de los ácaros oribátidos (Acariformes: Oribatida) del mundo (excepto fósiles). Departamento de Zoología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain. http://www.ucm.es/info/zoo/Artropodos/Catalogo.pdf [date of access 1 October 2011]

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