Family RHODACARIDAE Oudemans, 1902

Museums

Regional Maps

• Rhodacarinae Oudemans, A.C. 1902. New list of Dutch Acari. Second part. Tijdschrift voor Entomologie 45: 1-52 pls 1-6.

Introduction

The family Rhodacaridae was reviewed by Lee (1970) and Shcherbak (1980), but the concept of the family used there includes many genera that are now placed in other families. They occur in soil, including wet soil, and the few species that have been studied biologically feed on Collembola, other small mites, and nematodes (Lindquist et al. 2009). The world fauna includes about 150 species in 15 genera (Castilho et al., 2012), but the Australian fauna has never been studied. Only four genera and four species are known, and only one of those species is an Australian endemic. Many species of Rhodacaridae are small and inconspicuous, and may be overlooked in surveys, so it is likely that many more species remain undiscovered. Unidentified species have been recorded from Australia a number of times as listed for each genus, and unidentified Rhodacaridae were also reported by Malipatil & Blyth (1982), Proctor et al. (2011) and Manwaring et al. (2018).

General References

Castilho, R.C., de Moraes, G.J. & Halliday, B. 2012. Catalogue of the mite family Rhodacaridae Oudemans, with notes on the classification of the Rhodacaroidea (Acari: Mesostigmata). Zootaxa 3471: 1–69

Lee, D.C. 1970. The Rhodacaridae (Acari : Mesostigmata); classification, external morphology and distribution of genera. Records of the South Australian Museum (Adelaide) 16(3): 1-219

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.

Malipatil, M.B. & Blyth, J.D. 1982. A qualitative study of the macroinvertebrate fauna of the Thomson River and its major tributaries, Gippsland, Victoria. Reports of the National Museum of Victoria 1: 1-95

Manwaring, M., Wallace, H.M. & Weaver, H.J. 2018. Effects of a mulch layer on the assemblage and abundance of mesostigmatan mites and other arthropods in the soil of a sugarcane agro‑ecosystem in Australia. Experimental and Applied Acarology 74: 291-300.

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

Shcherbak, G.I. 1980. Kleschi Semeǐstva Rhodacaridae Palearktiki. Kiev : Naukova Dumka 216 pp.

History of changes