Caught in the act: terrestrial parasitengonan mite larvae parasitising flies in amber
2026 - Volume: 66 Issue: Suppl pages: 30
https://doi.org/10.24349/bv1u-ezf4
ICA 2026 - XVII International Congress of Acarology, 20-24 July 2026, Montpellier
Keywords
Diptera
Velvet mites
Ectoparasitism
Amber
Fossil
Abstract
Parasitengonan mites have a complex life cycle in which adults and deutonymphs are predatory, protonymphs and tritonymphs are inactive, and the larvae are parasitic on a wide range of hosts. In amber fossils, terrestrial parasitengonan mite larvae are among the most frequently reported parasites due to the strong attachment to their hosts, which prevents them from detaching when entrapped in tree resin. Such “frozen behaviour”, preserving deep-time interactions in amber, is valuable not only because of its rarity but also because it provides important information for reconstructing the ecology of past ecosystems. Here we present and describe parasitic associations between fossil terrestrial parasitengonan larvae and dipteran hosts preserved in amber. We further discuss the relevance of dipterans as hosts of terrestrial parasitengonan larvae in both the fossil record and modern lineages. From a sample of 81 amber pieces, 75 originate from Cretaceous Myanmar amber (ca. 99 Ma) and 6 from Eocene Baltic and Rovno ambers (ca. 40 Ma). Of the total samples, 92% of inclusions involve long- legged velvet mite (Erythraeoidea) larvae, whereas only 7% correspond to velvet mite (Trombidioidea) larvae. The most frequently observed association is between erythraeoidean larvae and biting midges (Ceratopogonidae), accounting for 56% of the associations in Cretaceous amber. This is followed by erythraeoidean larvae parasitising gall midges (Cecidomyiidae), representing 29% of the Cretaceous associations. Some of the observed interactions appear to have been lost in time, as they have not been reported in the present fauna. For example, despite the apparent strong association between gall midges and erythraeoidean larvae in the Cretaceous, this relationship has not been documented in extant fauna. Additionally, a possible trombidioidean mite was found attached to a long-legged fly (Dolichopodidae) in Eocene Baltic amber, an association known from modern lineages but here documented for the first time in the fossil record. These findings highlight the diversity of dipteran hosts parasitised by terrestrial parasitengonan larvae in deep time and provide new insights into the evolutionary history of host-parasite interactions in Parasitengona.
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