Lung mites (Pneumocoptes sp.) in bank voles (Clethrionomys glareolus) in Southwest Germany

Abstract

Lung mites of the genusPneumocoptes were found in bank voles (Clethrionomys glareolus) in Southwest Germany. This is the second time that lung mites have been recorded from a rodent in Europe¹. In 1964 they were discovered in histological sections of a lung of a bank vole in France and were described asP. tiollaisi Doby, 1963. Only three more species of the genus are known from rodents in the United States. The mites are viviparous; larvae and nymphs are described for the first time. The host specificity seems to be “natural” and not “physiological”, since in a natural environment only bank voles were found to be infected. In the laboratory, mites were transmitted from infected bank vole mothers to sucklings of the common field vole (Microtus arvalis).