Teratological anomalies are congenital abnormalities manifested in the body structure of an organism because of developmental aberrations. These congenital abnormalities, also known as teratological forms, are rare in ticks (Ixodida) and include cases of asymmetries, atrophies, gynandromorphs, and schizomelies. Such teratological anomalies are underreported in Asia, as evidenced by the relatively few published works on this subject. Here, we describe five cases of teratological anomalies in the ixodid ticks Amblyomma cordiferum Neumann, Amblyomma helvolum Koch, and Dermacentor taiwanensis Sugimoto from Taiwan and the Philippines. These are the first records of teratologies in D. taiwanensis and A. cordiferum and only the second report for A. helvolum. Additionally, these are the first published accounts of teratological anomalies in ixodid species from Taiwan and the Philippines.

With a brief review on taxonomic studies of Chinese water mites since 2010, this paper gives a checklist of the 381 species in 53 genera, 25 subfamilies, 23 families and 7 superfamilies, recorded from China. 25 of these (6.56%) are Palaearctic-Oriental, 85 (22.31%) Palaearctic, 271 (71.13%) Oriental in their distributions, and 290 (76.12%) are known at present only from China. The information on distribution within China is given for each species. Arrenurus (Arrenurus) bilobatus Jin & Li, 1996 is replaced with Arrenurus (Arrenurus) leishanus nomen novum, and Arrenurus (Micruracarus) bipetiolatus Jin & Wiles, 1996 with Arrenurus (Micruracarus) yibinus nomen novum.

Amblyseius orientalis Ehara (Acari: Phytoseiidae) is one local predatory mite in China that has high potential for controlling Polyphagotarsonemus latus, a globally important pest to many vegetables and crops. To further evaluate the control potential of A. orientalis on different host plants against P. latus, we selected bean, cucumber, and pepper as host plants to feed P. latus, and then to feed A. orientalis. It was found when the prey P. latus fed on cucumber leaves, development of A. orientalis was the slowest, with the lowest egg production and overall poor biological performance. When A. orientalis was fed with prey hosted on cucumber and the other two plants, there were 119 differentially expressed organic compounds. The differentially metabolites were significantly enriched in the pentose phosphate pathway and carbon metabolism pathway. Further transcriptomic analysis of A. orientalis revealed 36 differentially expressed genes. Among these genes, 20 were annotated in 17 pathways in KEGG, with significant enrichment in hippo signaling pathway-fly and polysaccharide degradation pathways detected. These results indicate that the development and reproduction of A. orientalis are significantly poorer when feeding on P. latus, leading to a marked decline in amino acids, sugars, lipids, and organic compounds in A. orientalis. Additionally, there are 36 genes with consistently different expression patterns in A. orientalis when comparing cucumbers to the other two host plants. This study is an initial attempt to unravel the biological mechanisms of how nutritional substances might affect biology of natural enemies through the food chain.