Podapolipidae

Podapolipidae is a family of mites. All members of the family Podapolipidae are specialized obligate external (and rarely internal) parasites of various insects, among which at least 20 genera are subelytral ectoparasites of different beetle families, mainly Carabidae, Chrysomelidae, Coccinellidae, and Scarabaeidae.

These mites are sexually transmitted, i.e. the motile stages of the mite (larvae or adult females) move from one host individual to another during copulation. Parasitisation with these mites can negatively affect host fitness. For example, in some ladybirds, individuals parasitised with Coccipolipus suffer lower fecundity and egg viability and sometimes reduced longevity. Beyond this, these mites can modify host sexual and behavioural traits to boost their transmission success among individual hosts. For example, in the milk weed leaf beetle, males parasitized by Chrysomelobia tend to more frequently contact other males, and are more successful in mating competition compared to unparasitised males; and this facilitates the mite's higher transmission rate.