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Abstract.- Mites are microscopic organisms which comprise a large group of Arthropoda belonging to the subclass Acari of class Arachnida. Acarid mites are more important including genus Caloglyphus Berlese. The genus Caloglyphus is found commonly in different areas of Punjab, Pakistan. A comprehensive survey of stored commodities resulted in two new species e.g., Caloglyphus pejowaliensis and C. aurangensis from district Narowal. The illustrations of main body characters, traditional description, host and comparison remarks are also given. A concise key of all the known species of this genus from Pakistan is also prepared.
Key words: Acaridae, hypopus, stored wheat, mung.
INTRODUCTION Mites of the family Acaridae have been reported from stored foods and grains all over the world causing different levels of damage to stored products. Many studies demonstrated that species of the stored grain mites attack the germ and consume very little portion of the remaining grain, thus causing up to only 3% of weight reduction (Solomon, 1946). These mites feed on embryo resulting in germination loss of the grains (Zachvatkin, 1941; Mahmood et al., 2012) along with deterioration in seed quality which also make it unsuitable for milling and unpalatable for livestock (Wilkin and Stables, 1985).
The species of Caloglyphus have been reported from potato tubers, onion bulbs, barley, rice, wheat, flour and chicken feeds (Ostovan and Kamali, 1995). These mites can survive in diverse environments such as store-houses, human and animal bodies. The genus Caloglyphus was erected by Berlese (1923) by designating Caloglyphus berlesei Michael, 1903 as its type species. Zachvatkin (1937) revised all the species known at that time in genus Caloglyphus. Zachvatkin (1941) described 4 new species and re-described 6 new species. Nesbitt (1944, 1949) added 1 and 3 new species, respectively. Samsinak (1966) added 1 new species, Mahunka (1973, 1974, 1978 and 1979) described 2, 1, 2 and 1 new species, respectively of genus Caloglyphus. Hughes (1976) made an excellent contribution to the mite fauna of stored grains and stored houses. Tseng and Hsieh (1976) re-described 1 species of the genus Caloglyphus. Samsinak (1980) revised the tribe Caloglyphini and elevated the status of Caloglyphus to the genus.
Channabasavanna et al. (1981), Rao et al. (1982), Ashfaq and Chaudhri (1983), Samsinak (1988), Zou and Wang (1989), Sevastyanov and Radi (1991), Sher...