Squirrel louse
| Squirrel louse | ||||||||||||
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Squirrel louse, female, back view |
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| Neohaematopinus sciuri | ||||||||||||
| Jancke , 1932 |
The squirrel louse ( Neohaematopinus sciuri ) is a species of real animal lice that lives as an ectoparasite in the fur of squirrels and other types of squirrels and sucks blood. Their natural distribution areas are, corresponding to those of their hosts, the northern Palearctic and North America with Mexico. The squirrel louse was introduced to other areas with the squirrel.
description
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The males have an average body length of about 1.3 millimeters, the females are slightly larger with an average of 1.5 millimeters. The head, thorax and abdomen are weakly sclerotized. The head is slightly longer than it is wide and clearly rounded at the front. The antennae are five-segmented with a basal segment that is significantly longer than the second segment, slightly wider than it is long and, especially in male lice, is strongly thickened. The third antenna segment is only elongated at the front in males and has two spindle-shaped setae there .
The thorax is wider than it is long. The front of the breastplate has a strongly rounded tip, at the back it ends in two appendages at the edges. The legs of the first pair of legs are small and have small, pointed claws. The legs of the middle and rear pair are larger and each has a pointed claw. The coxes are almost triangular. The abdomen of male lice is almost as wide as the thorax with a tergite on the second through seventh segments and two sternites on the third through sixth segments. In females, it is also wider than it is long, with one tergite each on the third to eighth segment and only one sternite on the third to seventh segment. Further species and gender-specific characteristics are the number, position and formation of different bristles of the head, the chest area and the abdomen, the design of the chitin platelets on the abdomen and the shape and occupation with setae of the genitals.
The squirrel louse is very similar in morphology to the species Neohaematopinus callosciuri , Neohaematopinus sundasciuri and Neohaematopinus sciurinus . In Neohaematopinus callosciuri and Neohaematopinus sciurinus , however, the basal segments of the antennae are elongated in front and each provided with a spindle-shaped seta. The squirrel louse differs from Neohaematopinus sundasciuri in the length and arrangement of certain setae of the abdomen.
distribution
The terra typica of the squirrel louse is the Buchholz, a forest area in the south of Naumburg an der Saale, in the state of Saxony-Anhalt ( 51 ° 7 ′ 49.1 ″ N , 11 ° 48 ′ 2.2 ″ E ). The distribution area includes Europe and North America including Mexico.
Until the first description of the squirrel louse , the identification keys for animal lice identified them as Neohaematopinus sciurinus , which only lives in North America. Until the 1980s, the literature shows the squirrel louse incorrectly being named Neohaematopinus sciurinus . This includes lice from North American gray squirrels naturalized to South Africa , which are likely to be squirrel lice . Find reports from Malaysia are doubtful. The examination of squirrel lice allegedly originating in Malaysia resulted in the finding that they were misidentified specimens of Neohaematopinus callosciuri and one each of Neohaematopinus elbeli and Hoplopleura pectinata . Here, too, the reason is that until the first description of Southeast Asian animal lice of the genus Neohaematopinus in the 1950s and 1960s, the identification keys identified such animals as squirrel lice or as Neohaematopinus sciurinus .
Way of life
The squirrel louse lives as a blood-sucking ectoparasite in the fur of the squirrel ( Sciurus vulgaris ) and two other types of squirrel , the red-bellied squirrel ( Sciurus aureogaster ) and the gray squirrel ( Sciurus carolinensis ). Reports of findings on thresher squirrels ( Sciurus niger ), gray-bellied squirrels ( Callosciurus caniceps ) and Finlayson's squirrels ( Callosciurus finlaysonii ) are probably based on an incidental attack.
Systematics
The squirrel louse has been assigned to the genus Neohaematopinus , of which more than thirty species have been described. The genus Neohaematopinus belongs with the closely related genera Johnsonpthirus and Linognathoides as well as numerous other genera to the family Polyplacidae within the real animal lice (Anoplura).
Initial description
The first description was made in 1932 by the German entomologist Oldwig Jancke in an issue of the magazine for parasite science .
Type copies
The holotype is a male animal 1.46 millimeters in length, the allotype has a length of 2.0 millimeters. Both types were in the collection of the entomologist Oldwig Jancke, their whereabouts are unclear.
etymology
The naming is, as is not unusual with parasites, related to the main host. The scientific species name sciuri is also derived from the scientific name of the squirrel genus , Sciurus .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Stefan von Kéler : A contribution to the knowledge of the squirrel louse Neohaematopinus sciuri Jancke . In: Journal of Applied Entomology 1952, Volume 33, No. 4, pp. 585-599, doi : 10.1111 / j.1439-0418.1952.tb00685.x .
- ↑ a b Oldwig Jancke: Messages about Anopluren . In: Zeitschrift für Parasitenkunde 1932, Volume 4, No. 2, pp. 240-253, doi : 10.1007 / BF02119404
- ↑ a b c d Lance A. Durden: A New Species and an Annotated World List of the Sucking Louse Genus Neohaematopinus (Anoplura: Polyplacidae) . In: Journal of Medical Entomology 1991, Volume 28, No. 5, pp. 694-700, here p. 699, doi : 10.1093 / jmedent / 28.5.694 .