Adactylidium
Sign in to saveAdactylidium is a genus of mites known for its unusual life cycle. An impregnated female mite feeds upon a single egg of a thrips, rapidly growing five to eight female offspring and one male in her body. The single male mite mates with all his sisters when they are still inside their mother. The new females, now impregnated, eat their way out of their mother's body so that they can emerge to find new thrips eggs, killing their mother in the process (though the mother may be only 4 days old at the time), starting the cycle again. The male emerges as well, but does not look for food or new mates
Species
GENUS
- KingdomAnimalia
- PhylumArthropoda
- ClassArachnida
- OrderTrombidiformes
- FamilyAcarophenacidae
via GBIF
Museum specimens
- Specimen records
- 5
- Family
- Acarophenacidae
- Collections
- USNM, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY ACAROLOGY LABORATORY, COLUMBUS, OH (OSAL)
- Recorded in
- United States, Colombia, Puerto Rico
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- taxon
- Parent taxon
- Acarophenacidae
Show 2 more facts
- taxon name
- Adactylidium
- taxon rank
- genus
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~1 min read
Encyclopedic overview
2 sectionsContents
- See also
- References
Adactylidium is a genus of mites known for its unusual life cycle. An impregnated female mite feeds upon a single egg of a thrips, rapidly growing five to eight female offspring and one male in her body. The single male mite mates with all his sisters when they are still inside their mother. The new females, now impregnated, eat their way out of their mother's body so that they can emerge to find new thrips eggs, killing their mother in the process (though the mother may be only 4 days old at the time), starting the cycle again. The male emerges as well, but does not look for food or new mates, and dies after a few hours.
== See also == Telescoping generations
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Adactylidium” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.