Location of Giresun province and its districts. 

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... to recent molecular systematic studies, the family Zerconidae belongs to the suborder Monogynaspida, cohort Gamasina and the superfamily Zerconoidea (Sikora 2014). Zerconid mites are important members of the soil fauna and these free-living mites colonize various soil substrates (Karaca & Urhan 2015a). They are mostly associated with humus, decom- posed litter, leaf mold, decaying plant materials, and mosses (Urhan 2010), however, there are rare records from woody substrates, ant-hills, nests of birds and small terrestrial mammals (Mašán & Fend'a 2004) as well. These small, predatory mites feed on the eggs, larvae, and nymphs of other mites and springtails (Shereef et al . 1984, Martikainen & Huhta 1990). Their wide range of habitats and diverse functional traits make the zerconid mites suitable as bioindicators of environ- mental changes (Sikora 2014). The average body length of a zerconid mite can vary between 200 − 700 micrometers. Their dorsal shields are divided into two separate parts: podonotum and opisthonotum. These mites are weakly sclerotized and their life cycle includes four active stages; larva, protonymph, deuto- nymph and adult. The most important characters distinguishing zerconid mite species are the number of setae situated on the peritremal shield, the shape and length of peritremal setae, the shape of the posterior part of the peritremal shield and its connection with the ventrianal shield, the shape of the slit between the lateral margin of the peritremal shield and the podonotal shield, condition of the adgenital shields and gland openings gv2, the number of setae of the ventrianal shield, the condition of the dorsal cavities, the number of setae in the marginal setal series of the opisthonotum, the setal pattern of opisthonotal setae and the shape of epistome (Sikora 2014). The members of the family Zerconidae are well known from the Holarctic region (Krantz 1978), however, in recent years there have been reports from the alpine zone of Central Mexico and Thailand (Ma et al . 2011, Ujvári 2011a, b, 2012) as well. At present, approximately 40 genera consisting of some 400 species are known worldwide. From Turkey, until now only two genera, Prozercon and Zercon , and 88 species were recorded (Karaca & Urhan 2014, 2015b). The first study on Turkish zerconids was pub- lished by a Polish acarolog, C. B ł aszak (1979) based on samples collected by B. Dominiak and J. Pawlowski in the Amanos Mountains and the sur- rounding Bolu province. From 1992 to date, fur- ther studies on zerconids were published by R. Urhan and his team. As a contribution to the knowledge of Zerco- nidae and understanding of the mite faunal rich- ness of Turkey, here we report on nineteen zerco- nid species belonging to two genera ( Prozercon and Zercon ) from the Giresun province. Their localities in Giresun and known distributions in the world are given. Furthermore, detailed description and drawings of the newly recorded Zercon karadaghiensis are presented. Altitude and habitat preferences of the zerconid species collected are also discussed. Soil and litter samples were taken from 309 different localities in forestlands of Giresun pro- vince. Giresun province is located in the Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey (Fig. 1). It is surrounded with the Black Sea coasts from the north and the range of North Anatolian Mountains from south. Although the Kelkit valley is covered with steppes, the area between coast and mountains is covered with forests. Total land area of the province is 6934 square kilometers. The samples collected were placed in plastic bags, labelled and transferred to the laboratory and placed in combined Berlese funnels. Mites were extracted for 5 − 7 days according to the humidity of the samples. At the end of this pro- cess, the contents of the bottles were transferred to Petri dishes and the mites were separated under a stereo-microscope. They were placed in 60% lactic acid for clearing and mounted on permanent microscope slides using a glycerine medium. The examination and drawing of mites were carried out using an Olympus BX50 microscope with DP25 camera. The examined materials are stored in 70% ethanol and deposited in the Acarology Laboratory of Pamukkale University, Denizli (Turkey). Morphological terminology, idiosomal chaetotaxy and poidotaxy (Fig. 2) used in the des- cription follows that of Mašán & Fend'a (2004). All measurements are given in micrometers ...