Brueelia lice

Brewer, Paige J. & Sweet, Andrew D., 2023, Prevalence and diversity of parasitic bird lice (Insecta: Psocodea) in northeast Arkansas, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife 22, pp. 205-215 : 208

3.1. Diversity and novel host associations of lice

From the 680 birds, we found a total of 817 lice representing 11 different louse genera, including from three different families in the parvorders Ischnocera and Amblycera . Lice collected in Arkansas alone contributed 327 lice. Notably, we collected over half (426) of the 817 lice (all in the genus Strigiphilus ) from one individual snowy owl ( Bubo scandiacus ) salvaged from Illinois. Lice from songbirds accounted for 276 lice from 21 bird host species. Among songbirds, Myrsidea and

Brueelia were the most common genera of lice with 97 and 95 individuals, respectfully. Myrsidea also had the highest number of occurrences, with samples from 21 different host individuals from five host species ( Table 1, Table S1, Fig. 1 ). We found Brueelia from 20 different individuals from nine host species ( Table S1, Fig. 1 ). We also found 63 lice in the genus Ricinus and 20 lice in the genus Menacanthus , both from seven host species (Table S3). Less frequent genera of lice included Picicola and Penenirmus from a Northern Flicker ( Colaptes auratus ) and Red-bellied Woodpecker ( Melanerpes carolinus ), Colpocephalum from Red-tailed Hawk ( Buteo jamaicensis ), and Rallicola from Sora ( Porzana carolina ) (Table S3). We also found four novel parasite-host associations not listed by Price et al. (2003) or reported by other checklists. This included Brueelia sp. from White-throated Sparrow ( Zonotrichia albicollis ), Lincoln’ s Sparrow ( Melospiza lincolnii ) and Ovenbird ( Seiurus aurocapilla ), and Menacanthus sp. from Tennessee Warbler ( Leiothlypis peregrina ) (Table S3). These lice were all collected from birds in Jonesboro, AR, except for Menacanthus sp. from L. peregrina collected in Rock Island, IL.

Figures

Fig. 1. The diversity of louse genera collected from 28 families of birds. Colors associated with each louse genus are indicated in the right-side legend. The numerical values indicate percentages. The sample size is indicated by the parenthesize to the right of genus names. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)