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Biodiversity of mites (Acari) is currently the field of extensive studies all over the world. Each year many papers with descriptions of new taxa, based largely on external morphology, are published. since the DNA barcoding system, using predominantly the nucleotide sequence of cytochrome oxidase subunit i (coi), has been proposed as an effective method for distinguishing the animal species (Hebert et al. 2003), some taxonomists begun to apply this approach in their investigations. Numerous studies show that the coi sequences of even closely related species differ by ca. ten fold the intraspecific variability and interspecific distance usually equals to or is higher than 3% (D ≥ 0.03 -Sbordoni 2010), making it possible to identify most metazoan species with high confidence. Recently the D1-D2 region of the nuclear 28s rrNA gene has been proposed as a reliable barcode marker complementing analyses based on mitochondrial coi (sonnenberg et al. 2007, Martin et al. 2010, skoracka and Dabert 2010.it is necessary to mention that the barcoding revolution and concept of DNA taxonomy have been widely debated in the past decade and besides the enthusiastic voices which saw in it a tool of unequivocal judge in taxonomic indecisions, it also provoked voices of opponents, who pointed out some deficiencies and limitations in the methods employed by Hebert et al. (2003). they concerned mainly abandoning both morphological data and other crucial species descriptors in favour of a narrow molecular identification system and disregarding the nature of speciation events, different roles of genetic system, natural selection and evolutionary time (sperling 2003(sperling , tautz et al. 2003(sperling , Will and rubinoff 2004(sperling , sbordoni 2010. However, there is a general agreement that molecular data play indisputable role in the analysis of biodiversity and that sequence of the mitochondrial coi gene associated with nuclear DNA sequences are the markers most commonly and successfully used in phylogenetic, phylogeographic and population studies.DNA barcoding is particularly valuable approach in cases, where classical identifying based on morphological features is misleading or very difficult. It concerns especially the species, which despite well expressed genetic separation are morphologically indistinguishable or the differences between them are very obscure. in these cases may increase considerably the overall taxonomic diversity (Hebert et al. 2004, Johnson et al. 2008, lumley and sperling 2010.the opposite side of DNA barcoding, much less popularized, is the detecting of 'false' morphospecies and thus decreasing the described number of species (e.g. otsuka et al. 1999(e.g. otsuka et al. , van Niekerk et al. 2004(e.g. otsuka et al. , otranto et al. 2005 have been considered as distinct steno-and monoxenous quill mite species (Acari: Prostigmata: syringophilidae) parasitizing the thrushes of the genus Turdus linnaeus and the European robin Erithacus rubecula (linnaeus), respectively. Morphological and molecular ...

Abstract. External morphological characters were used to reconstruct a phylogeny of the mite family Syringophilidae (Acariformes: Cheyletoidea), which are permanent parasites inhabiting the quills of bird feathers. A total of 53 syringophilid genera and 79 characters were included in the data matrix; maximum parsimony (MP) and Bayesian analyses (BA) were performed to determine their phylogenetic relationships. The consensus of unweighted MP trees was weakly resolved. Only four generic groups were recognized: Aulonastus + Krantziaulonastus (i) and (Creagonycha + Kethleyana) + (Megasyringophilus + Selenonycha) (ii) -both with low Bremer support (BS 1); the subfamily Picobiinae -Picobia, Calamincola, Columbiphilus (Neopicobia + Rafapicobia) (BS 12) (iii) and Psittaciphilus generic group -(Meitingsunes + Psittaciphilus) (Peristerophila + (Neoperisterophila + (Castosyringophilus + Terratosyringophilus))) (BS 2) (iv). BA revealed a consensus tree with a topology similar to MP. The two main groups recognized by MP, the subfamily Picobiinae and Psittaciphilus, both received the highest support of 1; while two other groups recognized by MP -Aulonastus + Krantziaulonastus and (Creagonycha + Kethleyana) + (Megasyringophilus + Selenonycha) received relatively low support of 0.73-74 and 0.76-77, respectively. The consensus of re-weighted MP trees was almost fully resolved but, the majority of the generic groups, excluding the Picobiinae and Psittaciphilus were supported by just a few non-unique synapomorphies with a high probability of homoplastic origin. The most intriguing result is the paraphyly of the Syringophilinae in respect to picobiines. The pattern of the re-weighted tree demonstrates only patches of parallel evolution at the level of syringophilid genera and bird orders. Perhaps horizontal shifts on phylogenetically distant hosts and colonization of quill (calamus) types other than primaries and secondaries were also important in the evolution of the syringophilids.

A new genus of syringophilid mites Meitingsunes gen. nov. (Acari: Cheyletoidea: Syringophilidae) inhabiting quills of columbiform birds is established. The new genus is closely related to Peristerophila Kethley but distinguished from it by the smooth hypostomal apex and divergent apodemes I not fused to apodemes II. This new genus includes one new species, M. aldwelles sp. nov. described from quills of Geotrygon frenata (Tschudi) from Colombia, and two named species moved from Peristerophila: M. tympanistria (Skoracki et Dabert, 2002) comb. nov. and M. zenadourae (Clark, 1964) comb. nov. [type species].