Poecilochirus

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Poecilochirus is a genus of mites belonging to the family Parasitidae. They feed on the eggs and larvae of Diptera. At least 14 species of the genus are transported from one food source to another by beetles of multiple genera in the family Silphidae with which they often have a symbiotic relationship in protecting beetle larvae or supplying food from fly larvae. Apparently, some nematodes of the family Allantonematidae are parasites of mites in this genus. Although some species of this genus had already been described and sampled in forensic cases or successional studies on corpses -where they appear because they have been transported by necrophagous beetles of the family Silphidae-, it has been recently when their usefulness as a marker of interest in forensic entomology has been assessed.

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