Neotrichodectes mephitidis (Packard)

Anderson Co., Fants Grove, 20 February 2003, ex Mephitis mephitis (Schreber), coll. W.K. Reeves.

More than 80 lice were removed from a single skunk. This level of infestation was much greater than was reported from skunks in Connecticut (Durden & Richardson 2003). The consequence of heavy chewing­louse infestations on wild mammals is poorly known, but infestations have rarely been implicated to cause pathology (Price et al. 2003).