162 Plant Protec ti on Quarterl y VoJ.6(4) 1991 not been seen, and that Tucker had sug­ Taxonomic background of the redlegged earth mite gested that H. des tructor was parthenoge­ netic. The situation was not helped when Halotydeus destructor (Tucker) (Acarina: Penthaleidae) the illustration of the male in Newman (1 925b and elsewhere) was reprod'uced in R . B. H alliday, CSIRO Division of Entom o logy, G PO Box 1700, Canbe rra, Newman (l936) labell ed as a female. ACT 2601, Australia . Meyer and Ry ke (1 960) and Meyer (1 981) also sta ted that the males were not known, and attributed to Tucker the view Summary then realised that the RLEM of Western that the species is probably parthenoge­ The early literature on red legged ea rth Australi a was not the sa me as Froggatt's netic. mite Hniotydell s des tnlctor (Tucker) species from New South Wales, and be­ Tucker's (1 925) observation of "several contains man y bib liographic and gan referring to the former as Pen thalells cases of apparen t parthenogenesis" could n om enclatural errors, w hich h inder deslrllctor (Jack) (Newman 1925a, 1925b). refer to complete female-female parthe­ study of its taxonom y and biology. Tucker (1925) described the earth fl ea nogenesis, or to the production of males Th ose errors are here corrected. It ap­ taxonomica ll y as P. destructor, and gave it from unfertilized eggs, a well-known pears as if the species occurs only in the new common name of black sand phenomenon in many mite groups. southern Africa, Aus tralia, and New mite. He also stated that Jack (1908) had Tucker also sta ted that copulati on had Zealand. Research is required to deter­ not given a description of the earth fl ea, never been observed. This in itself is not m ine whether it also occurs in Mediter­ but had referred to it as P. des tructor. surpri sing, since many mites practise ranean Europe, w h ere several rela ted Tucker is mistaken on both counts - Jack non-copulatory sperm transfer, in which species occur. Research is also required did describe the general appea rance of the the males deposit a spermatophore which to allow the confident taxonom ic recog­ spec ies, but d id not use the name destruc­ is later picked up by a female. Solomon nition of H. destmctor, so that it may be tor, or any other scienti fic na me. Tucker's (1937) described the web-spinning behav­ distinguished from related species in statements appear to have been based on iour of H. dest ructor, and noted that there Australia and elsewhere. Possible fu ture some manuscript of Jack's that was never were "small globules of water-like fluid biological control strategies cannot be published . His error of attributing the spaced at intervals along the threads". He fully exploited until these questi ons are name destructor to Jack was repea ted by observed that the specimens spinning answered. subsequent authors (e.g., Womersley web were smaller than adult fem ales, and 1933, 1941 , Newman 1925a. 1925b, Thor were probabl y males. It was suggested at Introduction and Will mann 1941 , Strandtmann and the time that the webbing contains, or is The redlegged earth mite Halolydell s de ­ Tilbrook 1968). Newman (1925a, 1925b) composed of, spermatophores, perhaps stnletor was described taxonomically by compounded the confusion by referring with sperma tozoa in the fluid droplets Tucker (1925), under the name Pel/lilalells to a publica tion by "W. E. Jacker", which (K. R. Norris, in correspondence, 1938). destructor. This bland sta tement conceals keyed and described P. des/rllc/or. This These sperma tophores are remarkably the fa ct that the species has had an unusu­ mythical author appears to be a chimera different fro m those typically produced all y interesting and compli ca ted of R. W. Jac k and R. W. E. Tucker. The by prostigmatid mites. These are usuall y nomenclatural and bibliographic history. publication referred to is probably Tucker erect mushroom-like structures of distinc­ The early literature on the species is full of (1925), since Newman quotes it as using ti ve shape, produced Singly, in which a errors, misunderstandings, and misquo­ the name black sa nd mite, which had packet of sperm is supported on a sta lk, tations. These erro rs confound attempts to been introduced by Tucker. Jack eventu­ rather like a golf ball on a tee. The sta lk determine the native range of the spec ies all y settled the issue by him self attribut­ often has attached ramifica ti ons and ex­ and its present geographic range, and to ing the name destrllctor to Tucker Oack, crescences that are of consistent shape consolidate the avaiJable information on 1942). within a species (see for example Krantz its biology. It is therefore timely to sum­ Swan (1 934) perfo rm ed the very useful 1978, Figure 12). Preliminary observa tions mari ze some of the history of the species, service of correcting a number of have shown that the specimens of RLEM in an attempt to clarify these questions. nomencl atura l and hi storical errors that that spin web never contain eggs, and had been made by previous authors. have an interna l organ resembling an The early literature on redlegged These incl uded some spelling erro rs, aedeagus, w hile specimens containing earth m ite which should be disregarded eggs do not spin web and do not have this The redlegged earth mite (RL EM) first Hn /o tydnells, Haiodytaeus, Notophal ll s, bi­ structure 0. C. Otto, personal communi­ appeared in the litera ture in 1908 under cololl r. dicolor. Newman (1936) then acted cation 1991). Also, the webbing produced the name earth fl ea (Ja ck 1908). Jac k gave to co rrec t his earlier erro rs, but Swan's ef­ by RLEM bears a striking resemblance to brief descriptions of its life history and bi­ forts appea r to have been overl ooked by that of Linopodes sp., in the related family ology, and an account of the damage tha t some other authors. Eupodidae, in which webbing been the species was causing to vegetables in shown to act as a carrier of sperma to­ the Cape Province of South Africa. He did T he existen ce of m ales phores (Ehrnsberger 1989). not, however, use any scientific name to There has been some doubt as to the mode Strandtmann and Ti lbrook (1 968) dis­ describe the species. Banks (1 915) referred of reproduction of RLEM , and w hether or tinguished the males and females of to the South African earth fl ea as an uni­ not males ex ist. Jac k {I 908) described the Hnlolydeus siglliensis by the morphology dentified species of Pen t1mlell s. Newman male as being small er than the fema le, of the genitalia and the number of genital (1 920) recognized the presence of earth and as having an abdomen that was ta­ seta e. Saker (1990) also described internal fl ea in Western Australia, and later (1923/ pering rather than rounded . Newman structures, notably the sperm sacs, that 1924) identified it as Nolophallils bieolor (l 925a, 1925b) published photographs la­ allow the recognition of males in other Froggatt 1921 , which had just been de­ belled "adult male", without ex planatory species of Eupodoidea. There appears to sc ribed from New South Wales. At the tex t. Neither of these authors offered any be no doubt that males exist in RLEM , but same time Newman (1923) coi ned the evidence that their specimens were in fa ct the descriptions that have been published name red legged velvet ea rth mite for the males. Womersley (1933) confused the is­ to date are not adequate to allow them to Western Australi an species. Newman sue when he said that males of RLEM had be recognized morphologically. Plant Protection Quarterly VoI.6(4) 1991 163 Geographic distribution of and described it as bl ac k with red legs and are neither egregius nor destructor, but be­ H. desmlctor a medio-dorsal red spot. This red spot re­ long to another species of unknown iden­ Halotydeus destructor was described from sembles that of Penthaleus major (Duges tity. The status of this record should be Cape Province, South Africa, where it is a 1834), but Berlese explicitly states that H. critically re-assessed on the basis of widespread and abundant pest. Its biol­ hydrodrortills has its anus terminal, while freshly coll ected specimens. Schuster ogy and behaviour in South Africa have the anus is dorsally placed in Penthalells . (1958) rightly pointed out that the red pig­ been reviewed by Meyer (1981). The first H. hydrodromus was subsequently found ments in these species are lost when the record of its occurrence in Australia was to be abundant on beach roc ks at low tide mites are preserved in alcohol or mounted at BunburyWA in 1917 (Newman 1925b). in Ireland (Halbert 1920). H. hydrodromlls on slides, so old museum specimens may Hearsay reports of the time suggested that variety albolineatus Halbert 1915 was de­ be difficult to identify. it came from ship's ballast of South Afri­ sc ribed from rocks on a beach in ueland, It should also be noted that H. destrllctor can origin (Johnson 1930). Once in Aus­ and is distinguished by a white dorsal varies in colour. Womersley (1933) noted tralia it appears to have spread very stripe. H. hydrodro11/11 S aiboiilleatus also oc­ the existence of specimens with a brown quickly, and was recorded in both South curs in the littoral zone on the western dorsal surface sharply demarcated from Australia and New South Wales in 1930 Mediterranean coast of France (Schuster the black ventral surface.