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Tetranychidae

Spider mites
Tetranychus urticae with silk threads.jpg
Tetranychus urticae
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Arachnida
Subclass: Acari
Order: Trombidiformes
Superfamily: Tetranychoidea
Family: Tetranychidae
Donnadieu, 1875
Subfamilies & tribes

Bryobinae Berlese

  • Bryobini Reck
  • Hystrichonychini Pritchard & Baker
  • Petrobiini Reck

Tetranychinae Berlese

  • Tenuipalpoidini Pritchard & Baker
  • Tetranychini Reck

Bryobinae Berlese

Tetranychinae Berlese

Spider mites are members of the Acari (mite) family Tetranychidae, which includes about 1,200 species. They generally live on the undersides of leaves of plants, where they may spin protective silk webs, and they can cause damage by puncturing the plant cells to feed. Spider mites are known to feed on several hundred species of plants.

Spider mites are less than 1 millimetre (0.04 in) in size and vary in color. They lay small, spherical, initially transparent eggs and many species spin silk webbing to help protect the colony from predators; they get the "spider" part of their common name from this webbing.

Hot, dry conditions are often associated with population build-up of spider mites. Under optimal conditions (approximately 80 °F or 27 °C), the two-spotted spider mite can hatch in as little as 3 days, and become sexually mature in as little as 5 days. One female can lay up to 20 eggs per day and can live for 2 to 4 weeks, laying hundreds of eggs. This accelerated reproductive rate allows spider mite populations to adapt quickly to resist pesticides, so chemical control methods can become somewhat ineffectual when the same pesticide is used over a prolonged period.

Spider mites, like hymenopterans and some scale insects, are arrhenotochous: females are diploid and males are haploid. When mated, females avoid the fecundation of some eggs to produce males. Fertilized eggs produce diploid females. Unmated, unfertilized females still lay eggs, that originate exclusively haploid males.

The best known member of the group is Tetranychus urticae, which has a cosmopolitan distribution, and attacks a wide range of plants, including peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, corn, cannabis, and strawberries. Other species which can be important pests of commercial plants include Panonychus ulmi (fruit tree red spider mite) and Panonychus citri (citrus red mite).


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Wikipedia

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