First report of a water mite in the family Pionidae (Acari: Parasitengona: Hygrobatoidea) in the Hawaiian Islands

Species of water mites can be found in over 100 families and subfamilies and are known to occur in great abundance and diversity throughout the world (Smith & Cook, 1991). Not surprisingly, few fresh-water mites occur in the Hawaiian Islands (Nishida, 1994). Imamura (1981) reported two halacrid mites from O‘ahu and a fresh-water oribatid has been recently reported from O‘ahu and Moloka‘i (Swift & Norton, 1998). An, as yet, undescribed species of the aquatic mite family Pionidae is reported for the first time in the Hawaiian Islands from material collected on O‘ahu and the Island of Hawai‘i. Mites were collected during surveys of ephemeral lentic habitat for larvae of the Southern House Mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus.