Mites as fossils: forever small?

Smallness being in the essence of a mite, the question is whether it has always been so during the geological history of Acari. Here I assemble measurements of over 260 published mite fossils, distributed from the Early Devonian (410 mya) to the end of the Neogene (5 mya), and compare them to the data available for their extant relatives. A number of fossils are reconsidered: reports of the Ordovician Brachypylina and Permian Astigmata have to...