Goniocotes Burmeister, 1838

Gustafsson, Daniel R., Grossi, Alexandra A., Ren, Mengjiao & Zou, Fasheng, 2023, The Goniodidae (Phthiraptera: Ischnocera) of peafowl (Aves: Galliformes: Pavo), with description of a new genus, Journal of Natural History 57 (17 - 20), pp. 996-1048 : 1015-1016

Goniocotes Burmeister, 1838

Ricinus De Geer, 1778: 69 in partim.

Philopterus Nitzsch, 1818: 288 in partim.

Goniodes Nitzsch, 1818: 293 in partim.

Goniocotes Burmeister, 1838: 431 .

Dictyocotes Kéler, 1940: 153 .

Type species

Ricinus gallinae De Geer, 1778: 79 , by subsequent designation ( Johnston and Harrison 1911, p. 326).

Remarks

Goniocotes has traditionally been considered rather homogeneous, and apart from Dictyocotes no generic name has been proposed for any group placed within this genus by Price et al. (2003). von Kéler (1940) placed Goniocotes and Dictyocotes in the subfamily Goniocotinae within Goniodidae , based on a small number of morphological characters: small species with little or no sexual dimorphism (including the antennae), angular temples, sparse chaetotaxy and simple male genitalia. This subfamily also included the genera Campanulotes Kéler, 1940 and Auricotes, 1940 , found on pigeons, and Labicotes, 1940 , found on galliforms. Labicotes is morphologically distinct, and may be more closely related to Chelopistes, 1940 , and the Oxylipeurus complex (Gustafsson et al. 2020).

Kéler̾s circumscription of Goniocotes is straightforward, but subsequent descriptions muddled the morphological borders of this genus considerably. Clay (1938) described two species of Goniodes from Afropavo congensis Chapin, 1936 , which were subsequently transferred to Goniocotes ( Hopkins and Clay 1952, p. 146–147). Hopkins and Clay (1952, p. 149) also included Goniodes parviceps Piaget, 1880 , in Goniocotes , which was followed by, for example, Emerson and Elbel (1957), Lakshminarayana and Emerson (1971), and Price et al. (2003).

von Kéler (1940) used the simple (̍solenoid̾) genitalia of Goniocotes to circumscribe the group, and it would seem that several genera described by Mey (1997) are more closely related to Goniocotes than to Goniodes , including at least Maleoicus , Weelahia and some species of Homocerus (see Mey 1997, figs 13d–f, i–k). No justification was given by Price et al. (2003) for their synonymisation of these genera with Goniodes . Moving the species in these genera to Goniocotes would cause the morphological variation of non-genitalic characters within this genus to increase substantially. No such changes are proposed here, as we consider all these groups proposed by Mey (1997) to likely represent valid genera. However, the relationships and variation within Goniocotes and Goniodes need further study. Here, we consider only one species of lice occurring on Asian peafowls to belong to the genus Goniocotes .