Tetranychoidea: Tetranychidae

Superorder Acariformes

  Order Trombidiformes

 Suborder Prostigmata

   Supercohort Eleutherengonides

 Cohort  Raphignathina

   Superfamily Tetranychoidea

       Family Tetranychidae

 

Common names: peacock mites, ornamental false spider mites

 

Probability of Encounter: Medium.

 

Quarantine importance: Medium.  The Tuckerellidae consists of a single genus, Tuckerella, and about two dozen species.  A few of these are sometimes pests of crops and one species has been associated with citrus necrosis.

 

Diagnosis:

• Empodium with tenent hairs.

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

• Most dorsal setae expanded, leaf-like; posterior margin with row of flagelliform setae.

• Adult female with 3 pairs of anal setae (males with 5 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• Cheliceral bases adnate, fused mesally into a stylophore (sometimes withdrawn into the body); chelicerae with fixed digit reduced and movable digit whiplike.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.

 

Ecology & Distribution.  The Tetranychoidea are plant-associated mites, and includes the infamous spider mites (Tetranychidae).  Tetranychoid species that feed on grasses or pasture legumes may occasionally appear in soil samples.

 

References

Baker EW & Pritchard AE.   1953.  The family categories of tetranychoid mites, with a review of the new families Linotetranidae and Tuckerellidae.  Ann. Entomol. Soc. Amer. 46: 243-258.

Beard JJ & Walter DE.  2005.  A new species of Tuckerella (Prostigmata: Tetranychoidea: Tuckerellidae) from Australia with descriptions of all stages and a discussion of the tritonymphal stage.  Acarologia 45: 49-60.

Chaudhri WM.  1971.  Four new species of the genus Tuckerella from Pakistan.  Pakistan J. Zool. 3: 79-85.

Corpuz-Raros LA.  2001. Tuckerella filipina, a new species of Tuckerellidae (Acari) from the Philippines. - Internat. J. Acarol. 27: 71-74.

 Collyer E. 1969.  Two species of Tuckerella (Acarina:Tuckerellidae) from New Zealand.  N. Z. J. Sci. 12: 811-814.

Ewing HE. 1922.  Three new species of peculiar and injurious spider mites. Ent. Soc. Wash. 24: 104-108.

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

Lin Y-M & Fu Y-G. 1997.  Two new species of the genus Tuckerella from Hainan Island, China (Acariformes: Tuckerellidae).  Acta Zoot. Sin. 22: 150-153.

Lin Y-M & Fu Y-G. 2000.  A new species of the genus Tuckerella from China (Acariformes: Tuckerellidae). - Acta Ent. Sin. 43: 311-313.

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

Miller (L.W.), 1964. - A new species of Tuckerella (Acarina, Tetranychoidea, Tuckerellidae) from Tasmania. – Pap. Proc. Roy. Soc. Tasmania, 98: 79-84.

Ochoa (R.), 1989a. - A note on paedogenesis in Tetranychoidea. – Internat. J. Acarol., 15: 117.

Ochoa (R.), 1989b. - The genus Tuckerella in Costa Rica (Acari: Tuckerellidae). – Internat. J. Acarol., 15: 205-7.

Ochoa (R.), 1999. - A “mite” more information. - Science 286: 2449.

Tucker (R.W.E.), 1926. - Some South African mites, mainly Tetranychidae and Eriophyidae. - Union S. Afr. Dept. Agr. Div. Ent. Mem., 5: 15pp.

Womersley (H.), 1940). - Studies in Australian Acarina Tetranychidae and Trichodenidae. – Trans. R. Soc. S. Aust., 64: 233-265.

Womersley (H.), 1957. - A new species of Tuckerella (Acarina, Tetranychoidea, Tuckerellidae) from South Australia. – Trans. R. Soc. S. Aust., 80: 73-75.