Jason Steinberg
The genus Lasioacarus was proposed by Kadzhaya and Sevastianov (1967) for the new species, L. nidicolous. Adult mites were collected from the nest of the ant, Lasius niger, in Ukraine. Fain & Chmielewski (1987) observed and cultured this species from a nest of the European honey bee, Apis mellifera, in Poland, describing the deutonymph for the first time. El-Banhawy and Abou-Awad (1990) described "Kucinia" [sic] morsei from deutonymphs collected from Apis dorsata in the Philippines. We have examined the type specimen of the latter species as well as additional specimens collected from A. dorsata in the Philippines and have found the species to be congeneric with L. nidicolous. We have received additional collections of Lasioacarus from Dr. Gard Otis, University of Guelph, which were collected from Apis cerana and Apis nigrocincta in Indonesia and the Philippines.
Lasioacarus nidicolous deutonymph
Lasioacarus sp. deutonymphs on corbicula of Apis cerana, Sulawesi, Indonesia