Family TRICHTHONIIDAE Lee, 1982

Museums

Regional Maps

• Trichthoniidae Lee, D.C. 1982. Sarcoptiformes (Acari) of South Australian soils. 3. Arthronotina (Cryptostigmata). Records of the South Australian Museum (Adelaide) 18: 327-359.

Introduction

The family Trichthoniidae is small, with only three genera and six species world-wide (Schatz et al. 2011). The taxonomic placement and generic content of the family are unresolved. Subias (2011) placed all these genera in the family Cosmochthoniidae, Colloff & Halliday (1998) were unable to place Trichthonius in any superfamily, and Norton & Behan-Pelletier (2009) described the family as paraphyletic. Together these taxa have a widespread but very scattered distribution in the Nearctic, Neotropical and Palaearctic Regions, Japan and Australia. The Australian fauna consists of a single identified species from litter and soil in Eucalyptus forest in South Australia, and a further unidentified species, also in the genus Trichthonius.

General References

Colloff, M.J. & Halliday, R.B. 1998. Oribatid Mites: A Catalogue of the Australian Genera and Species. Melbourne : CSIRO Publications.

Norton, R.A. & Behan-Pelletier, V.M. 2009. Suborder Oribatida. pp. 430–564 in Krantz, G.W. & Walter, D.E. (eds). A Manual of Acarology. Lubbock, Texas : Texas Tech University Press Third edition, 807 pp.

Schatz, H., Behan-Pelletier, V.M., OConnor, B.M. & Norton, R.A. 2011. Suborder Oribatida van der Hammen, 1968. pp. 141–148 in Zhang, Z.-Q. Animal Biodiversity: An Outline of Higher-level Classification and Survey of Taxonomic Richness. Auckland : Magnolia Press.

Subias, L.S February 2011. Listado sistemático, sinonímico y biogeográfico de los ácaros oribátidos (Acariformes: Oribatida) del mundo (excepto fósiles). Departamento de Zoología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain. http://www.ucm.es/info/zoo/Artropodos/Catalogo.pdf [date of access 1 October 2011]

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