New Records of Soil Galumnid Mites (Acarina: Cryptostigmata) from Dampa Tiger Reserve, Mizoram, India

Among all the soil micro- arthropods, mites are predominant and playing important role in increasing soil fertility through organic decomposition and they are inhabiting in all types of soil but predominantly found in soil litter, humus, and compost heaps. The present research work has been done to identify and prepare a record of the soil Galumnid mites from this region as very few works has been done on the taxonomy of this important group in this geographical area as well as in India. Only one major work has been found which was published by Sanyal (2009)[1] on the study of oribatid mites of Mizoram. Amongst all the States of India, Mizoram has the highest area under forest cover in terms of percentage of geographical area. Dampa Tiger Reserve of western Mizoram of India is located at Indo-Myanmar hotspot in the Lushai hills is one of the remotes Tiger Reserve of the country and immensely rich in floral and faunal biodiversity. 9 species including 5 genera of Galumnid mites are newly recorded for the first time from this area of study.