Adactylidium is a genus of mites known for its unusual life cycle.[1] An impregnated female mite feeds upon a single egg of a thrips, rapidly growing five to eight female offspring and one male in her body. The single male mite mates with all his sisters when they are still inside their mother. The new females, now impregnated, eat their way out of their mother's body so that they can emerge to find new thrips eggs, killing their mother in the process (though the mother may be only 4 days old at the time), starting the cycle again.[2][3][4] The male emerges as well, but does not look for food or new mates, and dies after a few hours.
^Stephen Jay Gould (1980). "Death Before Birth, or a Mite's Nunc Dimittis". The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 69–75. ISBN 0-393-01380-4.
^T. B. Kirkwood & T. Cremer (1982). "Cytogerontology since 1881: a reappraisal of August Weismann and a review of modern progress" (PDF). Human Genetics. 60 (2): 101–121. doi:10.1007/BF00569695. PMID 7042533. S2CID 25744635.
^Scott Freeman & Jon C. Herran (2007). "Aging and other life history characters". Evolutionary Analysis (4th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc. p. 484. ISBN 978-0-13-227584-2.
^Elbadry, E. A.; Tawfik, M. S. F. (1966-05-01). "Life Cycle of the Mite Adactylidium sp. (Acarina: Pyemotidae), a Predator of Thrips Eggs in the United Arab Republic". Annals of the Entomological Society of America. 59 (3): 458–461. doi:10.1093/aesa/59.3.458. ISSN 1938-2901.
Adactylidium is a genus of mites known for its unusual life cycle. An impregnated female mite feeds upon a single egg of a thrips, rapidly growing five...
the host fig, as well as for mites of the family Acarophenacidae (e.g. Adactylidium), which mate inside the body of their mother before they are born. Kikiki...
reproduction can also occur in certain mites that are not parthenogenetic, e.g. Adactylidium, in which the young hatch and mate within the mother, eating her from...
mated female rides on an adult insect to disperse to new areas. In genus Adactylidium, she also feeds on the insect's body fluids. When the insect begins laying...
a sneaky way of having more children by mating with his daughters.' Adactylidium: The single male offspring mite mates with all the daughters when they...
functional mouth and die from malnutrition. Mite Adactylidium – The initial food source of Adactylidium mite larvae is the body tissues of their mother...