ON TWO GENERA OF MITES

Extract

In 1871, Thorell published his description of Rhagidia in a paper entitled, “Om Arachnider fran Spetsbergen och Beeren-Eiland.” He placed it in the family Eupodidœ, from the other genera of which it differed principally in the great size of the mandibles. In 1876, Cambridge, in his paper “On a new Order and some new Genera of Arachnida from Kerguelen's Land,” described Pœcilophysis as the type of a new family and a new order. He was unaware of Thorell's mite, yet there is but one prominent difference between them, Pœcilophysis is said to have eyes on the frontal tubercle. Neither of these authors gave any reference to any species of Koch's genus Scyphius, to which their forms bear a great resemblance. Koch described about a dozen species of this genus, many of which are doubtless only forms of one species. In the modern European literature, nothing is done with Koch's species of this genus, save by Oudemans (1897), who identifies four of the Kochian names. Oudemans, however, appears to be ignorant of the fact that there were several other names for this genus besides Scyphius, for he thinks, since Scyphius is preoccupied, that the genus must have a new name.