Sphaeroseius ecitophilus is a South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

n species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of mite

Mite

Mites, along with ticks, are small arthropods belonging to the subclass Acari and the class Arachnida. The scientific discipline devoted to the study of ticks and mites is called acarology.-Diversity and systematics:...

.

Cândido Firmino de Mello-Leitão

Cândido Firmino de Mello-Leitão

Cândido Firmino de Mello-Leitão, , was a Brazilian zoologist who is considered the founder of Arachnology in South America, publishing 198 papers on the taxonomy of Arachnida...

 established the spider family Brucharachnidae in 1925 for the newly discovered genus and species from Córdoba, Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, Brucharachne ecitophila, based on a (purportedly) female specimen. He thought it the most curious spider he had ever seen. The "Brucharachnidae" were thought to be related to the spider family Oonopidae.

In 1995, Gerald W. Krantz and Norman I. Platnick

Norman I. Platnick

Norman I. Platnick is an American arachnologist, and the Peter J. Solomon Family Curator of the invertebrate zoology department of the American Museum of Natural History. A 1973 Ph.D...

 re-examined the original specimen, and found it not to be a spider at all, but an extraordinary male mite

Mite

Mites, along with ticks, are small arthropods belonging to the subclass Acari and the class Arachnida. The scientific discipline devoted to the study of ticks and mites is called acarology.-Diversity and systematics:...

 that very much resembles a spider. He placed it under the existing myrmecophilous genus Sphaeroseius.

Mites of the genus Sphaeroseius have only been found in association with ecitonine

Ecitonini

The New World army ant tribe Ecitonini contains most of the familiar species of army ants. The genus Neivamyrmex is the largest of all army ant genera, containing some 120 species, most in the Neotropics but some with ranges in the United States....

 army ant

Army ant

The name army ant is applied to over 200 ant species, in different lineages, due to their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids", in which huge numbers of ants forage simultaneously over a certain area, attacking prey en masse.Another shared feature is that, unlike most ant...

s (Neivamyrmex, Labidus) in Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, and possibly Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

.

The species name ecitophilus means "Eciton

Eciton

The New World army ant genus Eciton contains the most familiar species of army ants. The most predominant and well-known species is Eciton burchellii, whose common name is "army ant" and which is considered to be the archetypal species....

-loving".