Feather mites and other mites associated with birds: Below are links to lists and publications about mites associated with birds. The first two are Excel spreadsheets of literature reports of feather mites (Astigmata: Analgoidea, Pterolichoidea) and their hosts from around the world. Feel free to use these records, but please note that I have not corrected all the taxonomy. Also, there are numerous duplicate (or triplicate) records in which a subsequent paper notes the existence of previous records. Caveat usor!
Feather mite-host list 13 Oct 2020 for Proctor lab web pages
Feather mite literature to 13 Oct 2020 for Proctor lab web pages
Article on bird-associated mites in Canada including unpublished records (see p. 63)
List of feather mite genera from Alberta
Knee & Proctor (2010) Interactive HTML-based dichotomous key to female Rhinonyssidae
(Mesostigmata) from birds in Canada.
Oribatida from Alberta: Researchers at the Royal Alberta Museum have produced two compendia of mites known from Alberta. Part I is restricted to large-bodied (>300 um) Oribatida, and Part II includes small oribatids and a smattering of other mites.
Water mites (Parasitengona: Hydrachnidiae) from Alberta: Here is a dichotomous key to the common genera of water mites known from Alberta. At the end of the key is a list of all genera recorded from the province.
Key to Aquatic Mites Known from Alberta 2010 version
Wetland Chironomidae from Alberta: As Chapter 2 of his thesis, “Diversity of wetland non-biting midges (Diptera: Chironomidae) and their responses to environmental factors in Alberta“, my M.Sc. student Qi Liu made a gallery of the genera of chironomids that he found. This useful document includes an illustrated overview of all the puzzling bits on the head capsules of chironomid larvae as well as key features of each genus. Because of an upload limit of 2 Mb, I had to break the chapter into three sections:
Introduction and morphological overview – Gallery of Chironomidae of Alberta – Chapter 2 SML Intro – Qi Liu 2016
Subfamily Chironominae – Gallery of Chironomidae of Alberta – Chapter 2 SML Chironominae – Qi Liu 2016
Other subfamilies – Gallery of Chironomidae of Alberta – Chapter 2 SML other subfamilies – Qi Liu 2016
Of course, you can also download his entire thesis at the link given above. Please cite Qi’s thesis if you use this gallery.
Families of spiders known from Alberta: 
There are ~650 species of Araneae (spiders) recorded from Alberta. The presentation below provides a list of these families with numbers of species per family (thanks to Robb Bennett from the Royal B.C. Museum).
Edmonton Nature Club Spider presentation 7 Feb 2019 VERSION FOR PDF sml
Proctor Lab - where we put biodiversity under the microscope 