Family TENUIPALPIDAE Berlese, 1913

Museums

Regional Maps

• Tenuipalpini Berlese, A. 1913. Acarotheca Italica. Firenze : Ricci 221 pp.
• Tenuipalpidae Sayed, T. 1950. On the taxonomy of tetranychid and allied genera. A new family and two new sub-families in Acarina. Proceedings of the International Congress of Entomology 8: 1012–1017 [junior homonym].

Introduction

The Tenuipalpidae is a very important family of plant parasitic mites that damage food plants and ornamentals by transmitting plant viruses (Walter et al. 2009). Mesa et al. (2009) catalogued 891 species world-wide, and that work should be consulted for a key to genera and details of synonymy, bibliography, and food plants. The family includes very important pests of citrus, coffee, tea, orchids, grapes, fruit trees, grasses, and many other plants, where they are commonly known as flat mites or false spider mites. The most recent general review of the Australian fauna was by Smiley & Gerson (1995), who recorded 18 species. The known fauna now includes 64 described species, more than half of which were described since 1990. Important additions to the fauna were made by Beard et al. (2014) and Beard et al. (2018). The fauna certainly includes many species that have not been described or collected. Unidentified species have been recorded from Australia a number of times as listed for each genus, and unidentified Tenuipalpidae were also recorded by Grostal & O'Dowd (1994), Proctor et al. (2011) and Majer et al. (2013).

General References

Beard, J.J., Ochoa, R., Bauchan, G.R., Pooley, C. & Dowling, A.P.G. 2018. Raoiella of the world (Trombidiformes: Tetranychoidea: Tenuipalpidae). Zootaxa 4501(1): 1-301.

Beard, J.J., Ochoa, R., Bauchan, G.R., Welbourn, W.C., Pooley, C. & Dowling, A.P.G. 2012. External mouthpart morphology in the Tenuipalpidae (Tetranychoidea): Raoiella a case study. Experimental and Applied Acarology 57: 227–255 (feeding biology)

Beard, J.J., Seeman, O.D. & Bauchan, G.R. 2014. Tenuipalpidae (Acari: Trombidiformes) from Casuarinaceae (Fagales). Zootaxa 3778: 1-157

Grostal, P. & O'Dowd, D.J. 1994. Plants, mites and mutualism: leaf domatia and the abundance and reproduction of mites on Viburnum tinus (Caprifoliaceae). Oecologia (Berlin) 97: 308-315

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.

Mesa, N.C., Ochoa, R., Welbourn, W.C., Evans, G.A. & de Moraes, G.J. 2009. A catalog of the Tenuipalpidae (Acari) of the world with a key to genera. Zootaxa 2098: 1–185

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

Smiley, R.L. & Gerson, U. 1995. A review of the Tenuipalpidae (Acari: Prostigmata) of Australia with description of two new genera and four new species. International Journal of Acarology 21: 33-45

Walter, D.E., Lindquist, E.E., Smith, I.M., Cook, D.R. & Krantz, G.W. 2009. Order Trombidiformes. pp. 233-420 in Krantz, G.W. & Walter, D.E. (eds). A Manual of Acarology. Lubbock, Texas : Texas Tech University Press Third edition, 807 pp.

History of changes