Forensic acarology: an introduction M. Alejandra Perotti Æ M. Lee Goff Æ Anne S. Baker Æ Bryan D. Turner Æ Henk R. Braig Received: 5 June 2009 / Accepted: 7 June 2009 / Published online: 16 July 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract Mites can be found in all imaginable terrestrial habitats, in freshwater, and in salt water. Mites can be found in our houses and furnishings, on our clothes, and even in the pores of our skin—almost every single person carries mites. Most of the time, we are unaware of them because they are small and easily overlooked, and—most of the time— they do not cause trouble. In fact, they may even proof useful, for instance in forensics. The first arthropod scavengers colonising a dead body will be flies with phoretic mites. The flies will complete their life cycle in and around the corpse, while the mites may feed on the immature stages of the flies. The mites will reproduce much faster than their carriers, offering themselves as valuable timeline markers. There are environments where insects are absent or rare or the environmental conditions impede their access to the corpse. Here, mites that are already present and mites that arrive walking, through air currents or material transfer become important. At the end of the ninetieth century, the work of Jean Pierre Me ´gnin became the starting point of forensic acarology. Me ´gnin documented his obser- vations in ‘La Faune des Cadavres’ [The Fauna of Carcasses]. He was the first to list eight M. Alejandra Perotti (&) School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, Berkshire RG6 6AS, UK e-mail: m.a.perotti@reading.ac.uk M. Lee Goff Forensic Sciences Program, Chaminade University of Honolulu, 3140 Waialae Avenue, Honolulu, HI 96816-1578, USA A. S. Baker Department of Entomology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK B. D. Turner Department of Forensic Science and Drug Monitoring, King’s College London, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NH, UK H. R. Braig Bangor University, School of Biological Sciences, Deiniol Road, Bangor, Wales LL57 2UW, UK 123 Exp Appl Acarol (2009) 49:3–13 DOI 10.1007/s10493-009-9285-8