Tetranychoidea: Tetranychidae, Tetranychinae

Superorder Acariformes

  Order Trombidiformes

 Suborder Prostigmata

   Supercohort Eleutherengonides

 Cohort  Raphignathina

   Superfamily Tetranychoidea

       Family Tetranychidae

         Subfamily Tetranychinae

 

Common names: spider mites, red mites, two-spotted mites, six-spotted mites

 

Probability of Encounter: Very high

 

Quarantine importance: Very high.  The Tetranychidae contains a number of devastating pests of plants and most of the species of high importance on the Priority Pest List.

 

Diagnosis:

• Empodium without tenent hairs, usually claw-like, bifurcate, with or without proximoventral hairs; sometimes highly reduced and appearing absent.

• Prodorsum with 4 pairs of setae (vi, ve, sci, sce)

• Adult female with 1-2 pairs of anal setae (males with 4 pairs of ano-genital setae).

• Cheliceral bases adnate, fused mesally into a stylophore (sometimes withdrawn into the body); chelicerae with fixed digit reduced and movable digit whiplike.

• Peritremes typically chambered structures on the dorso-lateral surface of the prodorsum; naso absent; prodorsal trichobothria absent; 2 pairs of eye lenses usually present. Palps 5 segmented; with thumbclaw process (claw-like seta on the palp tibia and a thumb- or button-like subterminal palp tarsus).  Leg tarsi usually with tenent hairs on claws or empodium.  Genital papillae absent; males with an intromittent aedeagus.

 

Similar taxa.  The Stigmaeidae are sometimes confused with spider mites, but these predatory mites lack the whip-like movable digits.  Cryptognathidae are capable of retracting their gnathosoma, but their cheliceral bases are free and the movable digit is hook-like.  Bryobiinae have empodia with tenent hairs.

 

Ecology & Distribution.  The Tetranychinae includes the infamous two-spotted and other major economic spider mite pests.  Many are capable of spinning dense webs; others use silk only to attach their eggs to leaves and stems.

 

References

 Baker EW & Pritchard AE.  1960.  The tetranychoid mites of Africa.  Hilgardia 29(11): 455-574.

 Baker EW & Tuttle DM.  1994.  A guide to the spider mites (Tetranychidae) of the United States.  Indira Pub. House, West Bloomfield, MI: 347 pp.

Beard JJ, Walter DE, Allsopp P.  2003.  Spider Mites of Sugarcane in Australia: A Review of Grass-feeding Oligonychus Berlese (Acari: Prostigmata: Tetranychidae) with the description of four new species.  Australian Journal of Entomology 42: 51-78.

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

Evans, G.A., H.L. Cromroy & R. Ochoa. 1993. The Tenuipalpidae of Honduras (Tenuipalpidae: Acari). Florida Entomologist 76: 126–155.

Helle W. & M.W. Sabelis (eds.) 1985. Spider Mites, Their Biology, Natural Enemies, and Control, vol. 1A. Elsevier: New York.

Hislop, R.G. & L.R. Jeppson. 1976. Morphology of the mouthparts of several species of phytophagous mites. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 69: 1125–1135

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

Krantz GW.  1978.  A Manual of Acarology.  OSU Bookstores: Corvallis.

Meyer, M.K.P.S. 1979. The Tenuipalpidae (Acari) of Africa with keys to the world fauna. Entomology Memoir Department of Agriculture Technical Services Republic of South Africa 50: 1–135.

Meyer, M.K.P.S. & E.A. Ueckermann 1997. A review of some species of the families Allochaetophoridae, Linotetranidae and Tuckerellidae (Acari: Tetranychoidea). International Journal of Acarology 23: 67–92.

Mignon A & CHW Flechtmann 2004.  First additions and corrections to the World Catalogue of the Spider Mite Family (Acari: Tetranychidae).  Intern. J. Acarol. 30: 143-152.

Ochoa, R., H. Aguilar & C. Vargas 1994. Phytophagous Mites of Central America: An Illustrated Guide  CATIE, Turrialba, Costa Rica.

Tseng Y-H  1990.  A monograph of the mite family Tetranychidae (Acarina: Trombidiformes) from Taiwan.  Taiwan Museum Special Publication series 9. 224 pp.

Zhang Z-Q.  2003.  Mites of greenhouses: identification, biology and control.  CABI Publishing, Wallingford:  244 pp.