Family UNIONICOLIDAE Oudemans, 1909

Museums

Regional Maps

• Unionicolidae Oudemans, A.C. 1909. Über die bis jetzt genauer bekannten Thrombidium-larven und über eine neue Klassifikation der Prostigmata. Tijdschrift voor Entomologie 52: 19-61 pls 4-7.

Introduction

The Unionicolidae is a large and diverse family of water mites that are found in lakes, pools and rivers world-wide. The adults of some species prey on aquatic crustaceans, others are commensals or parasites of sponges, and others are found in the mantle cavities of fresh-water mussels (Walter et al. 2009). The larvae, where known, are parasites of aquatic insects, including Diptera and Trichoptera. Some of the genera in this family, especially Unionicola, have been subdivided into multiple subgenera. I have not attempted to assign the Australian species to subgenera because the required information is not always available. Instead I have listed the subgenus names that have been used in an Australian context as synonyms at the genus level. Harvey (1998) provided a key to the six known genera. The Australian fauna includes 88 species, and many of those have been described since 2001. Unidentified species have been recorded from Australia a number of times as listed for each genus, and unidentified Unionicolidae were also reported by Malipatil & Blyth (1982).

General References

Harvey, M.S. 1998. The Australian Water Mites. A Guide to the Families and Genera. Melbourne : CSIRO Publishing 150 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

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