Suctobelbidae Jacot, 1938

The adults are small (170–300 µm long) and light brown. The prodorsum has characteristic stylet-like chelicerae. Usually, it has a pair of flat regions, known as tectopedial fields, and a central knot. The notogaster has 9–14 pairs of notogastral setae. Their legs are thickened like a string of pearls and have one claw (Weigmann 2006, Norton and Behan-Pelletier 2009, Behan-Pelletier and Lindo 2023).

Suctobelbidae are found in soils of different ecosystems. Some species occur only in specific habitats, e.g., the species presented here, Suctobelba regia Moritz, 1970, is characteristic of acidic forest soils, while another species, Suctobelbata truncicola (Forsslund, 1941), is found under the bark on dead wood, and the species Suctobelbella latirostris Strenzke, 1950 occurs in mires. Some species are eurytopic, which means that they occur in many different habitat types, like e.g., Suctobelbella subtrigona (Oudemans, 1916).

The mites of this family are all parthenogenetic (Maraun et al. 2019), which means that only females are present, and they are produced from unfertilized eggs.