Family PENTHALEIDAE Oudemans, 1931

Museums

Regional Maps

• Penthaleidae Oudemans, A.C. 1931. Acarologische aanteekeningen. CVIII. Entomologische Berichten (Amsterdam) 8(179): 251-263.

Introduction

The Australian Penthaleidae have been well studied, because several species are important pests of crops and pastures. They are plant feeders, which puncture the surface of leaves with their highly modified chelicerae. They include the redlegged earth mite Halotydeus destructor and the blue oat mite Penthaleus major, which are pests of vegetables, legumes, cereals, and broad-leaf pasture plants. Taxonomic surveys of these genera are by Qin & Halliday (1996a, 1996b) and Halliday (2005), and the fauna was catalogued by Qin (1998). Most species of Penthaleidae are distinctive in having a very dark coloured or black body, and red legs. Unidentified species have been recorded from Australia a number of times as listed for each genus, and unidentified Penthaleidae were also reported by Harvey et al. (1993) and Proctor et al. (2011).

Thor & Willmann (1947) recorded Halotydeus hydrodromus Berlese & Trouessart from Australia. This record depends on their belief that Penthaleus bicolor Froggatt, 1921 sensu Womersley (1933) could refer to Halotydeus hydrodromus This is clearly not the case, and Womersley's specimens are here treated as belonging to Penthaleus major. Halotydeus hydrodromus does not occur in Australia. See Qin & Halliday (1996) for more detail.

Excluded Taxa

Misidentifications

Penthaleidae: Halotydeus hydrodromus Berlese & Trouessart, 1889 — Berlese, A. & Trouessart, E. 1889. Diagnoses d'acariens nouveaux ou peu connus. Bulletin de la Bibliothèque Scientifique de l'Ouest 2: 121-143

General References

Halliday, R.B. 2005. Systematics and biology of Penthaleus tectus sp. n. (Acari: Penthaleidae), a recently discovered pest of grain crops in eastern Australia. Australian Journal of Entomology 44: 144–149

Harvey, M.S., Gray, M.R., Hunt, G.S. & Lee, D.C. 1993. The cavernicolous Arachnida and Myriapoda of Cape Range, Western Australia. pp. 129-144 in Humphreys, W.F. The Biogeography of Cape Range Western Australia. Records of the Western Australian Museum 45(Supplement)

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

Qin, T.K. 1998. A checklist and key to species of Eupodoidea (Acari: Prostigmata) from Australia and New Zealand and their subantarctic islands. Records of the Western Australian Museum 28: 295-307

Qin, T.K. & Halliday, R.B. 1996a. Revision of the Australian and South African species of Halotydeus (Acarina: Penthaleidae). Bulletin of Entomological Research 86: 441-450

Qin, T.K. & Halliday, R.B. 1996b. The Australian species of Chromotydaeus Berlese and Penthaleus C. L. Koch (Acarina: Penthaleidae). Journal of Natural History 30: 1833-1848

Thor, S. & Willmann, C. 1947. Fam. Trombidiidae. Das Tierreich 71b: 187-541

Womersley, H. 1933. On some Acarina from Australia and South Africa. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 57: 108-112

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