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Family TETRANYCHIDAE Donnadieu, 1876

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Family TETRANYCHIDAE Donnadieu, 1876

Introduction

The Tetranychidae is a very large family of plant-parasitic mites, commonly known as spider mites, many of which are important pests of crop plants, fruit trees, and ornamental plants. They damage plant tissue directly by inserting their stylet-like mouthparts into leaf tissue, but they are not vectors of plant diseases. A good introduction to the systematics and biology of spider mites can be found in Walter et al. (2009), and all available information about the family was thoroughly reviewed by Helle et al. (1985). The identification of Tetranychidae is often difficult, because some of the important pest species are divided into varieties or strains that are reproductively isolated to varying degrees. Also, some species can only be identified with any confidence on the basis of the males, which are often not collected. The world fauna was catalogued in print form by Bolland et al. (1998), and an electronic database is maintained by Migeon & Dorkeld (2010 and later updates). The world-wide database now includes over 1,250 species, but only 69 have been recorded from Australia. Unidentified species have been recorded from Australia a number of times as listed for each genus, and unidentified Tetranychidae have also been reported many times, including by Davis (1968b), Greenslade (1985), Noble et al. (1996), Longstaff et al. (1999), Osler et al. (2000), Callan et al. (2011), Proctor et al. (2011) and Majer et al. (2013). The Australian fauna of Tetranychidae was fully reviewed by Beard (2018).

A number of species of Tetranychidae have been wrongly recorded from Australia, mostly as a result of misidentifications. Tetranychus tumidus Banks, 1900 was recorded in Australia by Womersley (1942), and this record was repeated by some later authors. However, these records are in error, and actually refer to Oligonychus digitatus. The complex series of misidentifications surrounding this species was reviewed by Seeman & Beard (2011).

Eutetranychus africanus (Tucker, 1926) was incorrectly reported from Australia by Vacante (2010). This incorrect record appears to come from a misreading of Walter et al. (1995), who reported that Eutetranychus africanus is not known from Australia.

Tetranychus desertorum has been reported from Australia, but these records cannot be confirmed. According to Seeman (2010) and Seeman & Beard (2011), the early records of this species in Australia by Dodd (1929, 1940) were not confirmed by careful examination of specimens. Davis (1968a) was unable to find any specimens in collections to confirm the presence of T. desertorum in Australia. Some authors have commented that T. desertorum is easily confused with T. ludeni (e.g. Meyer 1974), and it appears that T. ludeni has been misidentified as T. desertorum in Australia (Beard, 2018).

Allonychus braziliensis (McGregor, 1950) has been recorded from Australia by Pritchard & Baker (1955) and Jeppson et al. (1975), but these records actually refer to Oligonychus digitatus (see Seeman & Beard 2011).

Chaudhri et al (1974) recorded Anatetranychus daleae Tuttle & Baker, 1968 from several countries including Australia, but that is an error. Midgeon & Dorkeld (2015) record this species only from Mexico, USA, Pakistan and Taiwan.

Some old databases show a record of the cassava green mite Mononychellus tanajoa in Australia (for example, EPPO Plant Quarantine Data Retrieval system). This record was an error, and has now been retracted (CABI, 2016)

Some authors reported that Eotetranychus sexmaculatus is present in Australia, but this is now known to be an error (Seeman et al., 2017; Beard, 2018). Records of E. sexmaculatus actually refer to misidentified specimens of E. queenslandicus. Beard (2018) mentioned several additional species of Tetranychidae that may occur in Australia, but whose presence has not yet been confirmed (July 2019). Those species are not included in the current list.

 

General References

Banks, N. 1900. The red spiders of the United States (Tetranychus and Stigmaeus). Bulletin. United States Department of Agriculture Technical Service, Division of Entomology 8: 65-77

Beard, J.J. 2018. Spider mite species of Australia (including key exotic southeast Asian pest species). lucidcentral.org. December 2018. https://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/spider_mites_australia/

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)

Bolland, H.R., Gutierrez, J. & Flechtmann, C.H.W. 1998. World Catalogue of the Spider Mite Family (Acari: Tetranychidae). Leiden, Boston : Brill 392 pp.

CABI (Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau International) 2016. Mononychellus tanajoa (cassava green mite). Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau International. 2016. http://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/34767

Callan, S.K., Majer, J.D., Edwards, K. & Moro, D. 2011. Documenting the terrestrial invertebrate fauna of Barrow Island, Western Australia. Australian Journal of Entomology 50: 323–343

Davis, J.J. 1968a. Studies of Queensland Tetranychidae. 3. Records of the genus Tetranychus. Queensland Journal of Agricultural and Animal Science 25: 57-67

Davis, J.J. 1968b. Survey of Tetranychidae Proceedings of the Field Entomologists' Conference, Nambour, June 25th-28th, 1968. Queensland Department of Primary Industries. 119-123 pp.

Dodd, A.P. 1929. The Progress of Biological Control of Prickly-Pear in Australia. Brisbane : Commonwealth Prickly Pear Board pp. 41.

Dodd, A.P. 1940. The Biological Campaign Against Prickly-pear. Brisbane : A.H. Tucker, Government Printer ii 177 pp. 1 pl. 1 map.

Flechtmann, C.H.W. & Knihinicki, D.K. 2002. New species and new record of Tetranychus Dufour from Australia, with a key to the major groups in this genus based on females (Acari: Prostigmata: Tetranychidae). Australian Journal of Entomology 41: 118–127

Greenslade, P. 1985. Terrestrial invertebrates of the mound spring bores, creek beds and other habitats. pp. 64-77 in Greenslade, J., Joseph, L. & Reeves, A. (eds). South Australia's Mound Springs. Adelaide : Nature Conservation Society of South Australia.

Helle, W. & Sabelis, M.W. (eds) 1985. Spider Mites. Their Biology, Natural Enemies and Control. Vol. IA pp. 1-405 vol. IB pp. 1-458. Elsevier : Amsterdam.

Jeppson, L.R., Keifer, H.H. & Baker, E.W. 1975. Mites Injurious to Economic Plants. Berkeley : University of California Press 614 pp. 74 pls.

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.

Meyer, M.K.P. 1974. A revision of the Tetranychidae of Africa (Acari); with a key to the genera of the world. Entomology Memoirs, Department of Agricultural Technical Services, Republic of South Africa. Pretoria 36: 1-291

Midgeon, A. & Dorkeld, F. 2015. Spider Mites Web: a comprehensive database for the Tetranychidae. INRA, Montpellier. 18 March 2015. http://www.montpellier.inra.fr/CBGP/spmweb [Date of access 3 September 2016]

Noble, J.C., Whitford, W.G. & Kaliszewski, M. 1996. Soil and litter microarthropod populations from two contrasting ecosystems in semi-arid eastern Australia. Journal of Arid Environments 32: 329-346

Osler, G.H.R., van Vliet, P.C.J., Gauci, C.S. & Abbott, L.K. 2000. Changes in free living soil nematode and micro-arthropod communities under a canola-wheat-lupin rotation in Western Australia. Australian Journal of Soil Research 38: 47–59

Pritchard, A.E. & Baker, E.W. 1955. A Revision of the Spider Mite Family Tetranychidae. San Fransisco : Pacific Coast Entomological Society 472 pp.

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

Seeman, O. 2010. Book review. Arachnids by Jan Beccaloni. Australian Entomologist 37: 44

Seeman, O.D., Beard, J.J., and Zhang, L. 2017. A new Australian species of Eotetranychus (Acari: Tetranychidae) from buck spinifex Triodia mitchelli (Poaceae), intraspecific variation in Eotetranychus, and the synonymy of Platytetranychus with Eotetranychus. Zootaxa 4324(3): 491-517

Seeman, O.D. & Beard, J.J. 2011. Identification of exotic pest and Australian native and naturalised species of Tetranychus (Acari: Tetranychidae). Zootaxa 2961: 1–72

Vacante, V. 2010. Review of the phytophagous mites collected on citrus in the world. Acarologia 50: 221–241

Walter, D.E., Halliday, R.B. & Smith, D. 1995. The oriental red mite, Eutetranychus orientalis (Klein) (Acarina: Tetranychidae), in Australia. Journal of the Australian Entomological Society 34: 307-308

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.

Womersley, H. 1942. Miscellaneous additions to the acarine fauna of Australia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 66: 85-92 pl. III

 

History of changes

Note that this list may be incomplete for dates prior to September 2013.
Published As part of group Action Date Action Type Compiler(s)
05-Dec-2019 Acari 20-Sep-2021 MODIFIED Dr Bruce Halliday
01-May-2017 Acari 20-Sep-2021 MODIFIED Dr Bruce Halliday
19-Aug-2013 TETRANYCHIDAE Donnadieu, 1876 20-Sep-2021 MODIFIED
07-May-2013 20-Sep-2021 MODIFIED
29-Jul-2010 29-Jul-2010 MOVED
28-Jul-2010 28-Jul-2010 MOVED
07-May-2013 09-Jul-2010 ADDED
08-Jul-2010 MODIFIED