Eriophyoidea

Eriophyoidea are a superfamily of herbivorous mites. All post-embryonic instars lack the third and fourth pairs of legs. The respiratory system is also absent. The taxonomy of this group has always been confused. There were families created for few or even one species, i.e. Ashieldophyidae Mohanasundaram, 1984 and Pentasetacidae Shevchenko, 1991 but these families were placed by J. W. Amrine and T. A. Stasny within larger groups. Today the following three families are believed to belong to superfamily Eriophyoidea:

Eriophyidae Nalepa, 1898 Phytoptidae Murray, 1877 Diptilomiopidae Keifer, 1944

The group is ancient, with forms with two pairs of legs, already similar to the modern ones being found in Triassic amber from Italy: Ampezzoa, Triasacarus, Minyacarus and Cheirolepidoptus, which were specialised on extinct conifers belonging to the family Cheirolepidiaceae. The four genera were subsequently placed in a new extinct clade, the Triasacaroidea, which is the sister group to the extant Eriophyoidea. While traditionally considered members of the clade Trombidiformes, they have been found to be an early diverging mite clade outside the clade containing Trombidiformes and Sarcoptiformes in recent genomic analyses.