| abstract | An unusually large acariform mite is described as Immensmaris chewbaccei gen. et sp. nov. from the Cretaceous (ca. 100Ma) Burmese amber of Myanmar. With an idiosoma plus gnathosoma more than a centimetre long, it represents the largest unequivocal fossil mite ever recorded and approaches the maximum size of the largest living Acariformes today. Although some details of the dorsal idiosoma are equivocal, the new fossil appears to belong to Smarididae (Prostigmata: Parasitengona: Erythraeoidea) and also represents the largest erythraeoid mite ever discovered, indicating a clade of giant, possibly arboreal, mites in the Late Cretaceous of southeastern Asia. |