Greetings from Oz,

Does anyone have any specimens of putative Stratiolaelaps miles (Berlese)
[aka Hypoaspis miles] from relatively undisturbed habitats in Europe,
preferably from near the Italian type locality, that they would be willing
to lend me?  Electronic images would be appreciated too, especially of the
posterior dorsal shield.

I understand the importance of preserving the Berlese Collection and I do
not disagree with the no-lending policy (and have long harboured daydreams
of someday being able to visit Florence and the Collection, so far thwarted
by distance, economy and unending teaching).  But, has any progress been
made on developing a digital image collection?  If not, then perhaps this
could be discussed at the next ICA in Merida.

Cheers,

Dave Walter

Dear Colleagues,
does anyone of you know of a tick with the trivial name "birch tick"
("Birkenzecke" in german)? A friend of mine asked me about it but I
couldn't find any references. Perhaps it is just a synonym for the
wood tick (Ixodes ricinus)?

Thanks for any hints
Thomas Morwinsky

Dear colleagues:

I need the following scientists email address. please let me know.
 

D.Barr                              L.A.Tarasevich

J,Schwoerbel                        T.Imamura

J,C,Otto                            K.O.Viets

E.Lindquist                         J.Rolff

E.Meyer                             R.J.Roca

P.E.Schmid                          R.Wiles
 

Thank you very much for your kind considerations.

Sincerely yours:

Miss.Mahdieh Asadi
Department of plant protection
College of agriculture
Tehran university
Karaj-IRAN

Dear List Members:

Here on Eastern Long Island, New York, the lone star tick (Amblyomma
americanum) seems to produce a nasty bite in some individuals.  I have been
told by some "victims" that it appears that the larvae are the worst
culprits and often their bite, which usually number dozens at a time on an
individual, will ulcerate, take several weeks to heal, and eventually leave
a scar.
 

Would anyone offer a possible explanation to why larvae might produce a
worse bite than a nymph or adult?  Perhaps it's truly physiological or just
a function of being able to find and remove the larger nymphs or adults
before the smaller larvae.  Also, are there any suggestions on what can be
done to the bite site to subdue the reaction to the bite?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Scott R. Campbell
Suffolk County Health Department
 

Dear Colleagues

I am a M.sc student of acarology working on "fauana of Eviphididae,
Parholaspididae, Pachylealapidae, Macrochelidae in Tehran province of
Iran". I would appreciate receiving your excellent papers on these mites
including their taxonomy, biology, importance, etc. as many as possible.
 

Best regards

Sincerely yours

Miss. Malihe Latify
Department of Plant Protection
College of Agriculture
Tehran University
Karaj-Iran
Fax:0098-261-2224511
another e-mail: saboori2000@yahoo.com

Hi,
I have just started working on a House Dust Mite project which aims to produce a hygrothermal model of House Dust Mite response to environmental conditions in dwellings, especially within the mattress, working with Dermatopagoides pteronyssinus. This is an interdisciplinary project involving not only Acarologists but building physicists and architects! We currently have quite a lot of data on the population dynamics of Dp, from both our own experiments and published literature, however, most of our experiments have be carried out on lab mites which have been cultured at 25*C 75rh for 30+ years. We have just got a new computer controlled climate chamber and are interested in seeing if there are any differences in the population dynamics of lab mites and "wild mites" i.e. those which have been caught recently and have not evolved for 30 years under both steady state and optimum conditions.

Does any body have a culture of recently captured Dermatopagoides pteronyssinus, of which they would be willing to give us a small amount (we would be more than willing to reimburse you for postage etc),  or have any tips on how to capture significant numbers of Dp.

More information on our project can be seen at the following website www.arct.cam.ac.UK/research/mite (it is a little out of date).

Many thanks

Toby

p.s. If anybody would like some Dp culture please contact me.

Toby Wilkinson
mailto:tw248@cam.ac.uk
House Dust Mite Project
The Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies
University of Cambridge Department of Architecture
6 Chaucer Road, Cambridge CB2 2EB
Tel:  01223 331704  Fax:  01223 331701