Ten new species of Myrsidea Waterston, 1915 parasitic on members of the avian families Formicariidae, Thraupidae, Tyrannidae, Troglodytidae and Icteridae are described herein. They and their type hosts are M. isacantha sp. n. ex Chamaeza nobilis Gould, M. circumsternata sp. n. ex Formicarius colma Boddaert (Formicariidae); M. cacioppoi sp. n. ex Lanio fulvus (Boddaert), M. brasiliensis sp. n. ex Tangara chilensis (Vigors), M. saviti sp. n. ex Tangara schrankii (Spix) (Thraupidae), M. rodriguesae sp. n. ex Cnipodectes subbrunneus (Sclater), M. cnemotriccola sp. n. ex Cnemotriccus fuscatus (Wied-Neuwied), M. lathrotriccola sp. n. ex Lathrotriccus euleri (Cabanis) (Tyrannidae), M. faccioae sp. n. ex Cyphorhinus arada transfluvialis (Todd) (Troglodytidae), and M. lampropsaricola sp. n. ex Lampropsar tanagrinus (Spix) (Icteridae). Among these are two new Myrsidea species described from the avian family Formicariidae, which previously had only a single described Myrsidea species, and a new host record for M. cinnamomei Dalgleish et Price, 2005 ex Attila citriniventris Sclater. Analysis of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I sequences for these and other neotropical Myrsidea species provides an assessment of their phylogenetic relationships and indicates that all of these newly described species are genetically distinct. We also put these descriptions into context by estimating the potential number of unnamed Myrsidea species in Brazil, given the known diversity of potential hosts and typical levels of host specificity for Myrsidea species. Our estimate indicates that Brazilian Myrsidea species diversity is likely more than an order of magnitude greater than the number of described Myrsidea species known from Brazil, highlighting the need for future work on this megadiverse ectoparasite genus.
Rhinozachvatkinia calonectris sp. n., a new species of the feather mite genus Rhinozachvatkinia Mironov, 1989 (Avenzoariidae: Bonnetellinae), is described from two species of shearwaters in the North-East of the Atlantic Ocean, Calonectris edwardsii (Oustalet) (type host) and Calonectris borealis (Cory) (Procellariiformes: Procellariidae). We completed the morphological description of this new feather mite species with sequence data on the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene fragment (COI). The full generic status of Rhinozachvatkinia, originally established as a subgenus of Zachvatkinia Dubinin, 1949, is formally fixed and its systematic relationships are briefly discussed.
Here we present the first evidence of female dimorphism in ectoparasitic quill mites of the family Syringophilidae (Actinotrichida: Prostigmata: Cheyletoidea). Stibarokris phoeniconaias Skoracki et OConnor, 2010 and Ciconichenophilus phoeniconaias Skoracki et OConnor, 2010 so far have been treated as two distinct species cohabiting inside the quills of feathers of the lesser flamingo Phoeniconaias minor (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire) and the American flamingo Phoenicopterus ruber Linnaeus. Although females of these species differ morphologically by the extent of body sclerotisation, presence/absence of lateral hypostomal teeth, and shape of dorsal setae, their important common features are the lack of leg setae vs II, and both stylophore and peritremes shape. Here, we apply the DNA barcode markers to test whether the differences between S. phoeniconaias and C. phoeniconaias have a genetic basis, indicating that they really are distinct taxa, or whether they just represent two morphs of a single species. All analysed sequences (616 bp for COI and 1 159 bp for 28S rDNA) obtained for specimens representing females of both studied taxa as well as male, tritonymph, protonymph and larva of S. phoeniconaias were identical, which indicates that S. phoeniconaias and C. phoeniconaias are conspecific. The formal taxonomic consequence of our results is denial of the genus status of Ciconichenophilus Skoracki et OConnor, 2010 and species status of C. phoeniconaias, and recommendation that they should be treated as junior synonyms of Stibarokris Kethley, 1970 and S. phoeniconaias, respectively.
Torotrogla merulae Skoracki, Dabert et Ehrnsberger, 2000 and T. rubeculi Skoracki, 2004 have been considered as distinct steno- and monoxenous quill mite species (Acari: Prostigmata: Syringophilidae) parasitizing the thrushes of the genus Turdus Linnaeus and the European robin Erithacus rubecula (Linnaeus), respectively. Morphological and molecular studies on the taxonomical status of these two species provided contradictory results. Well defined differences in morphology were not supported by substantial genetic distance in nucleotide sequences of the DNA barcode (mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I, COI, and D2 domain of the nuclear 28S rRNA gene), by the topology of the phylogenetic trees (neighbor-joining, maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood) and the network analyses of the COI haplotype genealogy (median-joining, statistical parsimony) that reveal rubeculi populations nested within merulae haplotypes. Since detected differences between T. merulae and T. rubeculi populations (1.6-2.4% for COI and 0.1% for D2) are comparable to the intraspecific level observed in majority of currently recognized European Torotrogla species and are much lower than the interspecific distances observed in the genus, we postulate their conspecificity. Because main morphological distinctions concern the structures used for feeding, we hypothesize that they are the result of phenotypic plasticity evoked by specific and different environmental conditions prevailing on the host bodies (thickness of the feather quill wall).