Wow! Congratulations to Jim Moore for documenting a new ORDER for Maryland Biodiversity Project. The order is, of course, quite high taxonomically (remember: Kingdom-Phylum-Class-Order-Family-Genus-Species). It's like documenting our first beetle (Order Coleoptera) or fly (order Diptera) for the project! This becomes even more impressive when one considers we're in year 12 of the project!
This tiny mite is an arachnid (Class Arachnida) and belongs to the order Oribatida. BugGuide lists several other common names for the order: Armored Mites, Beetle Mites, Moss Mites, and Seed Mites. It was determined to belong to the genus Lucoppia by Lisa Lumley and Heather Proctor via BugGuide.
This order is far from rare, just small and difficult to document and identify. Jim does fine work finding, documenting, and working to identify members of the "smaller majority". There are likely many examples of this order shown in photos of beetles on the MBP site! Here are some fascinating notes on the order Oribatida from BugGuide:
📸: (c) Jim Moore, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) - Montgomery Co., Maryland (6/19/2024).
More at Maryland Biodiversity Project:
https://www.marylandbiodiversity.com/view/23143
BugGuide order page:
https://bugguide.net/node/view/91228
Bill
Comments
Great pic! AND great research!
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