A REVISION OF THE CHIGGERS OF 



THE SUBGENUS GAHRLIEPIA 



(ACARINA: TROMBICULIDAE) 



By 

 ROBERT TRAUB 



AND 



MARY LOU MORROW 



Department of Entomology 



Army Medical Service Graduate School 



Walter Reed Arm^y Medical Center 



Washington, D. C. 



INTRODUCTION 



The chiggers parasitic on small mammals have been attracting con- 

 siderable attention during recent years because of their potentialities 

 as vectors of disease. The chigger fauna is nevertheless relatively 

 little known, as is indicated by the fact that i8 of the 33 mites of the 

 subgenus Gahrlicpia discussed in this paper are new to science. In 

 southeast Asia the Gahrliepia complex is rich in numbers of species, 

 but individuals are not as commonly collected as are trombiculids of 

 the genera Tromhicula Berlese, 1905, and Enschongastia Ewing, 1938. 

 However, there is reason to believe that the relative scarcity of indi- 

 viduals may perhaps be apparent rather than actual. For example, 

 one of the new species described herein was found to burrow com- 

 pletely into the perineum of the host and thus very easily could have 

 been overlooked. A second Gahrliepia was "rare" until it was observed 

 that this species had unusual but specific areas of attachment. 



The current study is based largely upon material collected in Malaya 

 and Borneo by field teams of the U. S. Medical Research Unit 

 (Malaya)^ and the Colonial Office Medical Research Unit, both head- 

 quartered at the Institute for Medical Research, Kuala Lumpur, and 

 upon the wartime collections of the India-Burma Field Party of the 

 United States of America Typhus Commission. Thanks to the activi- 

 ties of the U. S. Special Technical and Economic Mission to Thailand, 

 some Siamese specimens have also been made available for study. 



1 Supported in part by the Medical Research and Development Division, Office 

 of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army. 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 128, NO. 6 



