Download high resolution image here.

I collected this mite on South Crest Trl, 9400 ft, Sandia Crest 7.5’ quadrangle in the Sandia Mountains, Bernalillo Co, NM from a Berlese funnel loaded with soil from a 40 cm deep core sample taken of a formica argentea ant nest. The sex determination is based on the ventral view comparison to images of male and female Antennophorus genitalia in Wheeler(1). I posted images of a representative worker ant from the nest, both sexes, and three immature stages (linked below). See the adult female post for more details.

This image is from a CombineZP processed stack of 231 images with a 3.6 µm step taken with a Mitutoyo BD Plan APO 20X/0.42 ∞/0 mm microscope objective + Nikon 135 mm F2.8 AIS telephoto lens + Nikon D300 camera (magnification 13.5×; technique described here).

Host worker:


Adult female, adult male, larva, protonymph, and deutonymph stages, respectively: