Tyrophagus putrescentiae is a cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan distribution

In biogeography, a taxon is said to have a cosmopolitan distribution if its range extends across all or most of the world in appropriate habitats. For instance, the killer whale has a cosmopolitan distribution, extending over most of the world's oceans. Other examples include humans, the lichen...

 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:...

 species. Together with the related species T. longior, it is commonly referred to as the mould mite.

Ecology

In the wild, T. putrescentiae occurs throughout the world in a wide range of habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

s, including "grassland

Grassland

Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants . However, sedge and rush families can also be found. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica...

s, old hay

Hay

Hay is grass, legumes or other herbaceous plants that have been cut, dried, and stored for use as animal fodder, particularly for grazing livestock such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep. Hay is also fed to pets such as rabbits and guinea pigs...

, mushroom

Mushroom

A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...

s, and the nest

Nest

A nest is a place of refuge to hold an animal's eggs or provide a place to live or raise offspring. They are usually made of some organic material such as twigs, grass, and leaves; or may simply be a depression in the ground, or a hole in a tree, rock or building...

 of bee

Bee

Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...

s and duck

Duck

Duck is the common name for a large number of species in the Anatidae family of birds, which also includes swans and geese. The ducks are divided among several subfamilies in the Anatidae family; they do not represent a monophyletic group but a form taxon, since swans and geese are not considered...

s". Under ideal conditions, with temperature

Temperature

Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...

s above 30 °C (86 °F) and humidity

Humidity

Humidity is a term for the amount of water vapor in the air, and can refer to any one of several measurements of humidity. Formally, humid air is not "moist air" but a mixture of water vapor and other constituents of air, and humidity is defined in terms of the water content of this mixture,...

 above 85%, it can complete its life cycle

Biological life cycle

A life cycle is a period involving all different generations of a species succeeding each other through means of reproduction, whether through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction...

 in under three weeks.

It is a common pest of stored products, especially those with a high protein

Protein

Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...

 and fat

Fat

Fats consist of a wide group of compounds that are generally soluble in organic solvents and generally insoluble in water. Chemically, fats are triglycerides, triesters of glycerol and any of several fatty acids. Fats may be either solid or liquid at room temperature, depending on their structure...

 content (meat

Meat

Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...

, cheese

Cheese

Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....

, nut

Nut

Nut may refer to:* En dash or nut, traditionally half the width of an em dash* Nut , a piece of metal wedged into a rock* Nut , the large, usually oily seed of some plants...

s and seed

Seed

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

s, dried eggs, etc.). It feeds on the fungi

Fungus

A fungus is a member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds , as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, and bacteria...

 that grow on the foodstuffs, and can become a pest of mycology

Mycology

Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy and their use to humans as a source for tinder, medicinals , food and entheogens, as well as their dangers, such as poisoning or...

 laboratories.

Human health

Tyrophagus putrescentiae has been identified as the cause of human disease in different regions. It has been found to cause copra itch

Copra itch

Copra itch is a cutaneous condition that occurs on persons handling copra who are subject to Tyrophagus longior mite bites....

 among people who handle copra

Copra

Copra is the dried meat, or kernel, of the coconut. Coconut oil extracted from it has made copra an important agricultural commodity for many coconut-producing countries. It also yields coconut cake which is mainly used as feed for livestock.-Production:...

 in the tropics, skin

Skin

-Dermis:The dermis is the layer of skin beneath the epidermis that consists of connective tissue and cushions the body from stress and strain. The dermis is tightly connected to the epidermis by a basement membrane. It also harbors many Mechanoreceptors that provide the sense of touch and heat...

 and respiratory

Respiratory system

The respiratory system is the anatomical system of an organism that introduces respiratory gases to the interior and performs gas exchange. In humans and other mammals, the anatomical features of the respiratory system include airways, lungs, and the respiratory muscles...

 allergies

Allergy

An Allergy is a hypersensitivity disorder of the immune system. Allergic reactions occur when a person's immune system reacts to normally harmless substances in the environment. A substance that causes a reaction is called an allergen. These reactions are acquired, predictable, and rapid...

 among people handling raw ham

Ham

Ham is a cut of meat from the thigh of the hind leg of certain animals, especiallypigs. Nearly all hams sold today are fully cooked or cured.-Etymology:...

s in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, and dermatitis

Dermatitis

-Etymology:Dermatitis derives from Greek derma "skin" + -itis "inflammation" and genetic disorder.-Terminology:There are several different types of dermatitis. The different kinds usually have in common an allergic reaction to specific allergens. The term may describe eczema, which is also called...

 in an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n butcher's shop

Butcher

A butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat or any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat, poultry, fish and shellfish for sale in retail or wholesale food establishments...

.

Taxonomy

Tyrophagus putrescentiae was first described

Alpha taxonomy

Alpha taxonomy is the discipline concerned with finding, describing and naming species of living or fossil organisms. This field is supported by institutions holding collections of these organisms, with relevant data, carefully curated: such institutes include natural history museums, herbaria and...

 by Franz Paula von Schrank

Franz Paula von Schrank

Franz von Paula Schrank was a German botanist and entomologist.Schrank was the first director of the botanical gardens in Munich from 1809 to 1832.Shrank was the first author to use the genus name Triops...

 in 1781, under the name Acarus putrescentiae. This original description covered both a mite and a springtail

Springtail

Springtails form the largest of the three lineages of modern hexapods that are no longer considered insects...

, collected from garden soil, flower pots and rotting leaves at an undisclosed location in the Austrian Empire

Austrian Empire

The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...

, and provided too little information for the mite to be confidently assigned to any family. In 1906, Anthonie Cornelis Oudemans treated A. putrescentiae as a species "indeterminabilia", but designated it as the type species

Type species

In biological nomenclature, a type species is both a concept and a practical system which is used in the classification and nomenclature of animals and plants. The value of a "type species" lies in the fact that it makes clear what is meant by a particular genus name. A type species is the species...

 of his new subgenus Tyrophagus

Tyrophagus

Tyrophagus is a genus of mites in the family Acaridae.-Species:* Tyrophagus curvipenis Fain & Fauvel, 1993* Tyrophagus debrivorus Chinniah & Mohanasundaram, 1996* Tyrophagus glossinarum Fain, 1985* Tyrophagus houstoni...

.

The identity of Schrank's species was not fixed until Phyllis Robertson revised the genus Tyrophagus in 1959, and designated a neotype of T. putrescentiae from Oudemans' collections. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature

International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature

The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature is an organization dedicated to "achieving stability and sense in the scientific naming of animals". Founded in 1895, it currently comprises 28 members from 20 countries, mainly practicing zoological taxonomists...

 approved an application to place Tyrophagus putrescentiae on its official list of approved names. In 2007, it was discovered that Robertson's concept of the species in fact covered animals belonging to two distinct species, and that the type specimen had been chosen from the much rarer species. A petition has been made to the Commission to stabilise usage by applying the name T. putrescentiae to the common species; the rare species would then be known as Tyrophagus fanetzhangorum.