Proctophyllodes thraupis Atyeo and Braasch, 1966

Mironov, Sergey V., Literak, Ivan, Sychra, Oldrich & Capek, Miroslav, 2017, Feather mites of the subfamily Proctophyllodinae (Acari: Proctophyllodidae) from passerines (Aves: Passeriformes) in Costa Rica, Zootaxa 4297 (1), pp. 1-105 : 94

Proctophyllodes thraupis Atyeo and Braasch, 1966

Proctophyllodes thraupis Atyeo and Braasch 1966: 134 , figs. 117, 118.

Material examined. 6 males and 9 females ( ZISP 6449–6463 ) from Tangara icterocephala (Bonaparte, 1851) (Thraupidae) , COSTA RICA, Tapantí National Park , Sector Tapantí, Cordillera de Talamanca Mts., 09°46'N, 83°47′W, 7 August 2009, collectors I. Literak, O. Sychra and M. Capek; 3 males and 5 females ( ZISP 6523–6530 ), same collection data, except date, 8 August 2009.

This species was previously recorded by Atyeo and Braasch (1966) from two species of tanagers ( Thraupidae ) in Mexico and Belize: Chlorophanes spiza (Linnaeus) from Belize and Mexico and Thraupis abbas (Deppe) (type host) from Mexico . These authors also reported this mite from Chlorospingus flavopectus ophthalmicus (Du Bus de Gisignies) (Emberizidae) from Mexico and from Euphonia affinis (Lesson) , E. hirundinacea Bonaparte (mentioned as T. lauta Bangs and Penard ), and E. musica (Gmelin, JF) ( Fringillidae ) from Belize and Mexico. Natural associations of Proctophyllodes thraupis with hosts other than thraupids look questionable. These findings could be the result of accidental contaminations, since Atyeo and Braasch collected most of their materials from dry museum skins. Besides, mite specimens found by these authors on euphonias could potentially represent another species, P. euphoniae or P. vesicularis , described above from Euphonia species.