PROC. ENT. SOC. WASH., VOL. 24, NO. 4, APR., 1922 107 



Type locality. Hawaii. 



Type Cat. No. 24721, U. S. N. M. 



Description based exclusively on the type specimen. A 

 paratype is in the writer's private collection, and a slide con- 

 taining two distorted but well stained specimens is in the United 

 States National Museum. All material taken on Hibiscus, 

 from Hawaii, by L. A. Whitney at the port of San Francisco. 

 This splendid and beautiful species differs not only from all 

 other species of its genus, but from all mite species known to 

 the writer, in the possession of its erectile whirl of long tail 

 plumes. 



PHYTOPTIPALPIDAE, new family. 



In 1905 Tragardh described from an Acacia species, in Egypt, 

 a very peculiar gall-making spider mite. He created for its 

 reception the genus Phytoptipalpus, which he placed in the sub- 

 family Tetranychinae. Not only was this species peculiar in 

 its gall making habits, but, according to Tragardh, even more 

 peculiar in its transformations. Because of the structure of 

 the mouth-parts being of the same type as in Eriophyes (formerly 

 Phytoptus)) Tragardh suggested the name Phytoptipalpus for 

 his new genus. 



Quite recently there has been sent to me through Nathan 

 Banks a collection of gall-making Phytoptipalpi, sent by C. S. 

 Misra from India. The specimens were collected from the 

 jujube tree (Zizyphusjujuba), the galls being cut off and inclosed 

 with specimens in vials. Mr. Misra also sent, sealed in a glass 

 tube, a fine specimen of a galled twig of the jujube preserved in 

 spirit. The mite species makes blister-like galls by feeding 

 under the bark, and specimens are found in all stages of devel- 

 opment in a single gall, which during its earlier growth has no 

 opening to the exterior. 



A study of this species from the jujube shows it to be closely 

 related to the one described by Tragardh. I am convinced, 

 however, that it has no such remarkable transformations as he 

 describes for his paradoxns, also that the genus Ph\t<>pti pn/pns 

 has important morphological homologies with the Tetranychi- 

 dae on the one hand and the Eriophyidae on the other, that 

 were not observed by Tragardh. In fact a morphological study 

 of the species from the jujube, convinces the writer that in the 

 genus Phytoptipalpus we not only have a group of family im- 

 portance but a group that probably included species which 

 were the direct ancestors of the gall mites, or Kriophyidac. 



Description of Family. The following characters are given for the new 

 family, Phytoptipalpidae: Prostigmatic mites \\hich are hexapod in all stages; 

 palpi greatly reduced and completely fused with the maxillary kise to form a 

 guttered beak for holding the needle-like chelicerae. Chelicerae elbowed at 



