Genus Pediculochelus (Acarina: Pediculochelidae), with Notes on P. raulti and Descriptions of Two New Species

A new species of the genus Paralycus from Fujian, China

“…Pediculochelus Lavoipierre, 1946. Type species: Pediculochelus raulti Lavoipierre, 1946;Price, 1973. Paralycus nortoni sp. nov. Gnathosoma (Figs.…”

“…The known species of Paralycus are described from soil, bees, Auricularia sp., lily fruits, and Coccinella septempunctata. Among them, two species are described as phoretic mites: P. parasiti and P. raulti (Berlese, 1905;Lavoipierre, 1946;Price, 1973;Fan et al 1996;Zhang and Li, 2001). Despite of being collected from the barks of beetle-infested pines, the new mite species P. nortoni sp.…”

“…To date, one genus and seven species have been described (Schatz et al 2011): Paralycus chongqingensis Fan, Li & Xuan, 1996 from Auricularia sp. in China, P. lavoipierrei (Price, 1973) from soil in California, P. longior Fan, Li & Xuan, 1996 from lily fruits in China, P. parasiti Zhang & Li, 2001 from Coccinella septempunctata in China, P. parvulus (Price, 1973) from soil in California, P. pyrigerus (Berlese, 1905) from soil in Italy, and P. raulti (Lavoipierre, 1946) from bees in South Africa (Norton et al 1983). In this paper, we describe and illustrate a new species of this family, which is the fourth record in Chinese fauna.…”

A Review of the Asexual Mite Genus Paralycus Womersley, 1944 (Acari: Oribatida: Pediculochelidae), with Description of Three New Species and A Key to Species of the World

“…All known species lack males, possibly indicating a long-term maintenance of asexual reproduction [3]. Pediculochelids are found in the soil [2][3][4][5][6][7][8], on bees [4,9,10], and rarely in other habitats [4,[11][12][13][14][15].…”

“…However, a species belonging to Pediculochelidae had been described earlier as Alicus pyrigerus Berlese, 1905 in family Alycidae [5]. For this species, Womersley (1944) [16] proposed a new genus, Paralycus (based on the differences in the body shape and bothridial setae), thus making Pediculochelus a junior synonym [3,4]; however, as per ICZN rules, this did not affect the validity of the family name Pediculochelidae.…”