Genus Pyemotes Amerling, 1862

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• Pyemotes Amerling, C. 1862. Naturökonomie der von ihm beobachteten Milben, insbesondere der Trombidieen. Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Prague 2: 54-56.
• Pediculoides Targioni Tozzetti, A. 1878. Relazione intorno ai lavori della Stazione di entomologia di Firenze per l'anno 1876. Acaridei. Annali di Agricoltura. Roma 1: 242-275.
• Heteropus Newport, G. 1850. Further observations on the habits of Monodontomerus, with some account of a new Acarus, Heteropus ventricosus, a parasite in the nests of Anthophora retusa. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 2 6: 395-396 [junior homonym].

Introduction

The taxonomy of the genus Pyemotes has been subject to much confusion. Many literature records are based on misidentifications, and some of the included species have a complicated synonymy. Some of the Australian species cannot be recognised, and all require thorough revision. Yu et al. (2010) showed that the common straw itch mite P. tritici is a complex of several closely related species.

In addition to the named species listed here, unidentified species of Pyemotes have been reported from Australia a number of times, including by Letchford et al. (1994).

General References

Letchford, J., Strungs, I. & Farrell, D. 1994. Pyemotes species strongly implicated in an outbreak of dermatitis in a Queensland country hospital. Pathology 26: 330-332

Prendergast, K.S. & Yeates, D.K. 2018. New records of bee fly (Diptera: Bombyliidae) and mite (Acari: Pyemotidae) parasites of Australian Megachile bees (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) in Western Australia. Australian Entomologist 45(1859): 51–56 [54]

Yu, L., Zhang, Z.-Q. & He, L. 2010. Two new species of Pyemotes closely related to P. tritici (Acari: Pyemotidae). Zootaxa 2723: 1–40

History of changes