Project(s) of GTI scholarship holder BARRETO Mauricio Rafael

Mites (Acari) of wild Colombian mammals and birds

Grantee: BARRETO Mauricio Rafael

Internship details

  • Years

    2010, 2012 and 2013

  • Training location

    Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences

  • Belgian supervisor

    Dr. Wauthy Georges

  • Studied organism (classification)

    Animalia – Arthropoda – Arachnida (Acari)

  • Reports

Mites are one of the most diverse groups of Arachnida, with a great number of families, genera and species. Many species of mites are parasites of vertebrates, especially mammals and birds. Colombia is a very rich country in the last two taxa, but information regarding parasitic mites of wild animals is scattered in different journals. Furthermore, there are no checklists of parasitic mites of wild Colombian mammals and birds.

This project will generate, for the first time, basic lists of mites associated with wild mammals and birds present in Colombia. At the same time, this project will allow to identify parasitic mites found in our collection. The new knowledge will be available through the National Biodiversity Information System, SiB Colombia.

Additional documentation

Scientific papers

Bochkov, A.V., and Barreto, M. (2014). New species of the subgenus Radfordia (Hesperomyobia) (Acariformes: Myobiidae) – Parasites of the subfamily Sigmodontinae (Rodentia: Cricetidae: Sigmodontinae). Internat. J. Acarol. 14, 37–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/01647954.2014.884164 Bochkov, A.V., Lareschi, M., and Barreto, M. (2014). New species and records of the mite genus Prolistrophorus (Acariformes: Listrophoridae) from rodents of the subfamily Sigmodontinae (Rodentia: Cricetidae). Acta Parasitol. 59, 586–595. https://doi.org/10.2478/s11686-014-0286-3 Barreto, M., Burbano, M. E., Proctor, H. C., Mironov S. V., and Wauthy, G. (2012). Feather mites (Acariformes: Psoroptidia) from Colombia: Preliminary list with new records. Zootaxa 3516, 1–68. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3516.1.1