Adactylidium

Adactylidium
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Arachnida
Subclass:	Acari
Order:	Trombidiformes
Family:	Acarophenacidae
Genus:	Adactylidium Cross, 1965

Adactylidium is a genus of mites known for its unusual life cycle.^[1] The pregnant female mite feeds upon a single egg of a thrips, growing five to eight female offspring and one male in her body. The offspring devour their mother from the inside out,^[2] and the single male mite mates with all the daughters when they are still in the mother. The females, now impregnated, cut holes in their mother's body so that they can emerge to find new thrips eggs. The male emerges as well, but does not look for food or new mates, and dies after a few hours. The females die at the age of 4 days, when their own offspring eat them alive from the inside.^[3]

References

1. Stephen Jay Gould (1980). "Death Before Birth, or a Mite's Nunc Dimittis". The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 69–75. ISBN 0-393-01380-4.
2. T. B. Kirkwood & T. Cremer (1982). "Cytogerontology since 1881: a reappraisal of August Weismann and a review of modern progress" (PDF). Human Genetics 60 (2): 101–121. doi:10.1007/BF00569695. PMID 7042533.
3. Scott Freeman & Jon C. Herran (2007). "Aging and other life history characters". Evolutionary Analysis (4th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc. p. 484. ISBN 0-13-227584-8.