Poe lac 
VOL. XVII. FEBRUARY, 1910. No. 1. 


TWO NEW MYRMECOPHILOUS MITES OF THE GENUS 
ANTENNOPHORUS:' . 
By Wiiu1am Morton WHEELER. 
THE mites of the genus Antennophorus, owing to their extraordinary 
parasitic relations with various ants of the genus Lasius, have been 
assiduously studied in Europe by Janet, Wasmann, Karawaiew and 
Berlese, but up to the present time our North American species have 
remained unknown. <A few North and South American mites, to be 
sure, have been described as species of Antennophorus, but they are 
now known either to belong to different genera or to have a very 
doubtful taxonomic status. Several years ago I found on some 
workers of Lasius wmbratus Nyl. var. aphidicola Walsh, at Colebrook, 
Connecticut, a large, active mite, which Wasmann described as 
Antennophorus wheeleri.2 Berlese ? however has recently placed this 
species in a distinct genus, Echinomegistus, which also includes, 
though in a separate subgenus (Antennomegistus), a Brazilian mite 
which he formerly described as Antennophorus caputcarali. In 
another paper Wasmann described under the name A. barbatus * a 
large mite which was found attached to a common legionary ant, 
Eciton praedator, in the state of Santa Catharina, Brazil, but it is by 
no means clear from his brief description, in which he dwells only on a 
few superficial characters, that the specimen is a true Antennophorus. 
Berlese has shown that still another species, A. raffrayt Wasmann, 
found in nests of Plagiolepis custodiens at the Cape of Good Hope, 
belongs to a peculiar genus which he calls Physalozercon. I am 
inclined to believe from the taxonomic changes which have overtaken 

1 Contributions from the Entomologica! Laboratory of the Bussey Institution, Har- 
vard University. No. 12. 
2Zur Kenntnis der myrmecophilen Antennophorus und anderer auf Ameisen reiten- 
der Acarinen. Zool. Anzeig., XXV, 1902, 72. 
3 [llustrazione Iconografica degli Acari Mirmecofili. Redia, I, 1904, p. 398. 
4 Neue Dorylinengiste aus dem neotropischen und dem aethiopischen Faunengebiet. 
Zool. Jahrb, Abth. f. Syst. XIV, 1900, p. 41. 
1 
