Family PENTHALODIDAE Thor, 1933

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• Penthalodidae Thor, S. 1933. Über die prostigmatische Familie : Eupodidae C. L. Koch 1842 und über die Teilung dieser Familie, mit Definitionen der neuen Familien. Zoologischer Anzeiger 101: 271-277.

Introduction

The Australian Penthalodidae are relatively well known. They have been collected and studied because of their superficial similarity to crop pests in the family Penthaleidae. The fauna was revised by Qin (1994), who reported six species, all in the genus Stereotydeus. They appear to have no economic importance. Womersey (1941) described the new species Penthalodes australicus, but this species was transferred to the family Eriorhynchidae by Qin & Halliday (1997). Unidentified species have been recorded from Australia a number of times as listed for each genus, and unidentified Penthalodidae were also reported by Kinnear & Tongway (2004), Adolphson & Kinnear (2008) and Proctor et al. (2011).

General References

Adolphson, H. & Kinnear, A. 2008. Acari (mite) assemblages under plantations of bluegum, Eucalyptus globulus, in southwestern Australia. Pedobiologia 51: 427–437

Kinnear, A. & Tongway, D. 2004. Grazing impacts on soil mites of semi-arid chenopod shrublands in Western Australia. Journal of Arid Environments 56: 63–82

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. 1994. Revision of the Australian Penthalodidae (Acarina). Invertebrate Taxonomy 8: 1305-1323

Qin, T.K. & Halliday, R.B. 1997. Eriorhynchidae, a new family of Prostigmata (Acarina), with a cladistic analysis of eupodoid species of Australia and New Zealand. Systematic Entomology 22: 151-171

Womersley, H. 1941. The red-legged earth mite (Acarina, Penthaleidae) of Australia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 65: 292-294

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