Neohaematopinus sundasciuri
| Neohaematopinus sundasciuri | ||||||||||||
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| Neohaematopinus sundasciuri | ||||||||||||
| Durden , 1991 |
Neohaematopinus sundasciuri is a species of animal lice known only from two museum specimens of the northern Palawan squirrel ( Sundasciurus juvencus ). It is likely tied to this host and thus endemic to the Philippine island of Palawan .
description
The males have an average body length of about 1.2 millimeters, the females are slightly larger with an average of 1.5 millimeters. The head, thorax and abdomen are well 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 and slightly wider than it is long. 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.
Neohaematopinus sundasciuri is very similar in morphology to the species Neohaematopinus callosciuri , Neohaematopinus sciuri 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. Neohaematopinus sciuri differs from Neohaematopinus sundasciuri in the length and arrangement of certain setae of the abdomen.
Way of life and distribution
Neohaematopinus sundasciuri lives as a blood-sucking ectoparasite in the fur of the northern Palawan squirrel ( Sundasciurus juvencus ). Since the species of the genus Neohaematopinus are highly host-specific, it can be assumed that Neohaematopinus sundasciuri, like its host, is endemic to the Philippine island of Palawan and was introduced with it to the small island of Apulit , which is located near Palawan . The terra typica of Neohaematopinus sundasciuri is the Baranggay Tinitian in the municipality of Roxas on Palawan ( 10 ° 4 ′ 41.6 ″ N , 119 ° 12 ′ 7.2 ″ E ).
Systematics
Neohaematopinus sundasciuri was 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
It was first described in 1991 by the US parasitologist Lance A. Durden . He was presented with some lice found in the fur of two Northern Palawan squirrels from the University of Michigan zoological collection.
Type copies
The holotype is a male animal 1.29 millimeters in length, the allotype has a length of 1.58 millimeters. Both types are located in the Zoological Museum on the main University of Michigan campus at Ann Arbor . Nine male and eight female paratypes are in the collections of the University of Michigan, the Natural History Museum in London , the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, and the University of the Philippines in Los Baños .
etymology
The naming is, as is not unusual with parasites, related to the host. The species name sundasciuri is derived from the scientific name of the Sunda tree squirrels , Sundasciurus , to which the Northern Palawan squirrel belongs.
literature
- 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, Vol 28, No. 5, pp 694-700. Doi : 10.1093 / jmedent / 28.5.694 .