Pachylaelaps Berlese, 1888

The only attempt to compile the large amount of scattered information on Pachylaelaps was that of Hirschmann and Krauss (1965), who provided keys to 55 species. However, many more species have been described since then, especially from China and Europe, and data on these has not been synthesised, so it is difficult to assess the size of the world fauna. Species of Pachylaelaps are believed to be predators of nematodes and insect eggs (e.g. Gomaa et al., 1989; Karg, 1993a).