Klimov Pavel B, Kolesnikov Vasiliy B, Shaw Matt, Fan Qing-Hai, Zhang Zhi-Qiang, OConnor Barry
Lilly Hall of Life Sciences, Purdue University, G-225, 915 W State St., West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
Papanin Institute for Biology of Inland Waters, Russian Academy of Sciences, 152742 Borok, Russia.
Life (Basel). 2025 Jul 10;15(7):1085. doi: 10.3390/life15071085.
A detailed morphological characterization is presented for gen. et sp. nov., a newly discovered modern representative of the relict family Schizoglyphidae, found in a nest of the termite in New Zealand. This is the second extant schizoglyphid species known from modern material, and its discovery provides rare insight into a transitional stage in the evolution of astigmatid life cycles. The phoretic stage appears to be a tritonymph-rather than the typical deutonymph-based on key morphological traits including three-segmented palps, three pairs of genital papillae, and the presence of a pharynx. These features suggest that early astigmatid mites evolved multiple ontogenetic routes to dispersal, including tritonymphal, deutonymphal, and possibly adult phoresy, before the canalization of life cycles around deutonymphal dispersal. The persistence of putatively ancestral traits in schizoglyphids, along with their apparent ecological conservatism in termite nests, indicates the role of environmental stability in preserving modes of life history that otherwise appear extinct. We also provide a key to describe Schizoglyphidae species and discuss the implications of this discovery for understanding the origins of phoresy-related metamorphosis in Astigmata.
本文对新发现的残遗科裂纹螨科（Schizoglyphidae）的一个新属新种进行了详细的形态学特征描述，该螨发现于新西兰白蚁巢中。这是已知的第二种从现代材料中发现的现存裂纹螨物种，其发现为疥螨生命周期进化的过渡阶段提供了难得的见解。基于包括三节触须、三对生殖乳头以及咽的存在等关键形态特征，携播阶段似乎是第三若螨，而非典型的第二若螨。这些特征表明，早期疥螨在围绕第二若螨携播的生命周期定型之前，进化出了多种个体发育的传播途径，包括第三若螨携播、第二若螨携播以及可能的成螨携播。裂纹螨中假定祖先性状的保留，以及它们在白蚁巢中明显的生态保守性，表明环境稳定性在保留否则似乎已灭绝的生活史模式中的作用。我们还提供了一个描述裂纹螨科物种的检索表，并讨论了这一发现对于理解疥螨目与携播相关变态起源的意义。
