Floracarus biserratae Huang, 2001

What are Eriophyoidea?

Eriophyoidea are also called, rust mites, eriophyoid mites, gallmites and etc. In terms of taxonomic status, the Eriophyoidea belongs to the Superfamily eriophyoidea, Subclass Araci, Class Arachnida, Phylum Arthopoda. Arthopods are animals with sectional bodies and an exoskeleton. Spiders belong to the Class Arachnida where the body is divided into a cephalothorax and abdomen and there are four paris of legs. The appearance of the Araci is even simpler. There are simple transverse grooves between the cephalothorax and abdomen, which is referred as pseudometamerism.

    Eriophyoidea are tiny organisms that cannot be seen with the naked eye, being between 0.1 and 0.3mm long. They are worm shaped with only two pairs of legs located at the front of the body. Common Araci have four pairs of legs, and this is the greatest difference between the Eriophyoidea and other araci. Another difference is the position of the genitalia which are located between the legs at the front end of the body, (this would be about chest height in a human) the genitalia of common aracis are usually at the end of the abdomen. The araci show pseudometamerism, but the eriophyoidea have other features such as pseudo-rings and a significant reduction in the number of setae.