McAllister, Chris T.

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OSU Journals (Oklahoma State University)

New State Records for the Flea, Foxella ignota (Siphonaptera: Ceratophyllidae) from Oklahoma and Sucking Louse, Hoplopleura sciuiricola (Phthiraptera: Hoplopleuridae), from Iowa and Oklahoma Chris T. McAllisterScience and Mathematics Division, Eastern Oklahoma State College, Idabel, OK 74745Lance A. DurdenDepartment of Biology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA 30458Matthew B. ConniorHealth and Natural Sciences, South Arkansas Community College, 300 S. West Ave., El Dorado, AR 71730Little is known about the ectoparasites of the wild mammals (excluding bats) of Oklahoma (Ellis 1955; Stark 1970; Reisen and Best 1973; Tyler and Buscher 1975). Here we report two new state records for a hoplopleurid sucking louse from Iowa and Oklahoma, and a state record for a cerato-phyllid flea from Oklahoma. During September 2012, 14 adult plains pocket gophers, Geomys bursarius (Shaw) from Boiling Springs State Park, Woodward County (36.453877ºN, 99.302671ºW) were taken using Victor® gopher traps.  During March 2013, a single adult female fox squir-rel, Sciurus niger was found dead on a road 8.0 km W of Broken Bow off St. Hwy. 3, Mc-Curtain County (34.064338ºN, 94.828566ºW). Ectoparasites were collected, preserved in 70% ethanol, and processed and identified using appropriate guides (Benton 1983; Kim et al. 1986).  Voucher ectoparasites are de-posited in the General Ectoparasite Collec-tion in the Department of Biology at Georgia Southern University (accession nos. L3548, L3580).  Host vouchers of G. bursarius are deposited in the Henderson State University (HSU) Collection, Arkadelphia, Arkansas as HSU 699; the S. niger is in the Eastern Oklahoma State College (EOSC) teaching collection.Nine fleas (three males, six females) were taken from two (14%) G. bursarius and identified as the ceratophyllid, Foxella ignota (Baker). This flea is fairly widespread in the western two-thirds of North America (from the Mississippi River west to Alberta and British Columbia in the north and Arizona and California in the south) where preferred hosts are pocket gophers (Geomys spp. and Thomomys spp.) although it has occasion-ally also been reported from mammalian ecological associates of these rodents (Lewis 1975; Benton 1980; Traub et al. 1983; Lewis and Wilson 2006).  Foxella ignota has not previously been reported from Oklahoma. Eleven subspecies of F. ignota are recognized by both Lewis (1975) and Traub et al. (1983). The specimens from Oklahoma belong to the nominate subspecies, F. i. ignota Jordan. Previous records of this subspecies are from Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa (including the type locality, Ames), Minnesota and Ne-braska (Benton 1980; Traub et al. 1983) (Fig. 1). The Oklahoma record therefore extends the known southern distributional limit of F. i. ignota.  Further southward in Mexico, F. ignota is replaced by three congeneric pocket gopher-associated fleas, F. hoogstraali Traub, F. macgregori Barrera and F. mexicana I. Fox as discussed by Lewis (1975).25Proc. Okla. Acad. Sci. 93: pp 25-28 (2013)Eight sucking lice (five males, three females) collected from S. niger were identified as Hoplopleura sciuricola Ferris.  This louse is a widespread ectoparasite of tree squirrels in the Americas (Durden and Musser 1994). Kim et al. (1986) state that it occurs through-out the United States.  There are previous records of this louse from Canada (Kim et al. 1986), Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela (Ferris 1921; Johnson 1972; Barros-Battesti et al. 1998; Smith et al. 2008) and the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Mississippi (Ferris 1921), Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minne-sota, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tex-as (Kim et al. 1986), Indiana (Whitaker and Spika 1976), Michigan (Lawrence et al. 1965), New Jersey (Harlan and Kramer 1979), Ohio (Katz 1938), South Carolina (Reeves et al. 2004), Tennessee (Durden et al. 1997), Vir-ginia (Parker 1968), West Virginia (Karnes and Shoemaker 1966), Wisconsin (Amin 1976), and Utah and Wyoming (Kucera et al. 2007) (Fig. 2). There are also previously unreported specimens of H. sciuricola from Iowa (Story County: Ames [42.02335°N, 93.625622°W], 2 males-ex S. niger, 17 Feb. 1959, collector Frank E. French, accession no. FF182) and Trinidad (Maingot Estate near Sangre Grande [10.58909°N, 61.133888°W], 1 male, 1 female-ex red-tailed squirrel, Sciurus granatensis Humboldt, 6 Oct. 1955, collector Wilbur G. Downs; accession no. TRVL 530) in the collection of L. A. Durden.  Hoplopleura sciuricola also occurs as an introduced spe-cies on non-native, introduced gray squir-rels, Sciurus carolinensis, in some other parts of the world such as Great Britain (Durden and Musser 1994).  Nevertheless, there are no previously published records of H. sciu-ricola from Oklahoma.  Ellis (1955) reported ectoparasites from several mammal species in the Wichita Mountains in southwestern Oklahoma and examined three specimens of S. niger but he did not record any lice from them.  Kim et al. (1986) state that H. sciuricola parasitizes tree squirrels and Durden and Figure 1. States where Foxella ignota ignota has been reported. Dots = previous records; star = new record.C.T. McALLISTER, L.A. DURDEN and M.B. CONNIOR26Proc. Okla. Acad. Sci. 93: pp 25-28  (2013)Musser (1994) list nine species of Sciurus (four from North America, five from the Neotropics) and two species of Tamiasciurus (both from North America) that have been recorded as hosts for this louse.  Smith et al. (2008) report another squirrel host from Peru belonging to the genus Microsciurus. This louse is probably widespread as an ectoparasite on both S. niger and S. carolin-ensis in Oklahoma, and further collecting of ectoparasites from these squirrels will likely produce more records from the state. In conclusion, we suggest additional ec-toparasite surveys on Oklahoma mammals, which appear to be uncommonly reported from hosts in the state.  For example, prior to our study, only seven species of  mites have been reported from native mammals in Oklahoma (Whitaker et al. 2007). Of these seven species, two are not true ectoparasites (one is a predator of other ectoparasites, the other is phoretic) and the remaining five are only associated with bats.  We suggest that target species to examine for ectoparasites should include various rodents and insec-tivores.ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation provided a scientific collecting permit to C. T. McAllister.  We thank James H. Boone (Collection Manager, Field Mu-seum, Chicago, IL) for assistance with their collection of fleas, and Dr. Robert E. Lewis (Iowa St. Univ., Ames, IA) for information on fleas, and Dr. R. Tumlison (HSU) for expert curtatorial assistance.  We dedicate this paper to the memory of renowned ec-toparasitologist and colleague, Dr. Nixon A. Wilson (1930-2011).LITERATURE CITEDAmin OM. 1976.  Lice, mites and ticks of southeastern Wisconsin mammals. Great Lakes Entomol. 9: 195-198.Barros-Battesti DM, Arzua M, Linardi PM, Bothelo JR, Sbalqueiro IJ. 1998. Interrelationship between ectoparasites and wild rodents from Tijucas do Sol, State of Parana, Brazil.  Mem. Instit. Oswaldo Cruz 93:719-725.Benton AH. 1980. An atlas of the fleas of the eastern United States. Fredonia, New York: Marginal Media. 157 p.Figure 2. States where Hoplopleura sciuricola has been reported. Dots = previous records; stars = new records.  Entire distribution not shown (see text).27NEW STATE RECORDS FOR THE FLEA AND SUCKING LOUSEProc. Okla. Acad. Sci. 93: pp 25-28 (2013)Durden LA, Musser GG. 1994. The sucking lice (Insecta, Anoplura) of the world: a taxonomic checklist with records of mammalian hosts and geographical distributions. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. 218:1-90.Durden LA, Kollars TM Jr, Patton S, Gerhardt RR. 1997. Sucking lice (Anoplura) of mammals of Tennessee. J. Vector Ecol. 22:71-76.Ellis LL Jr.  1955. A survey of the ectoparasites of certain mammals in Oklahoma. Ecology 36: 12-18.Ferris GF. 1921. Contributions toward a monograph of the sucking lice. Part II. Stanford Univ. Publ., Univ. Ser. Biol. Sci. 2:53-133.Johnson PT. 1972. Sucking lice of Venezuelan rodents, with remarks on related species. Brigham Young Univ. Sci. Bull., Biol. Ser. 17:1-62.Kim KC, Pratt HD, Stojanovich CJ. 1986. The sucking lice of North America: An illustrated manual for identification. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 241 p.Kucera JR, Durden LA, Kim KC. 2007. New records of sucking lice (Phthiraptera: Anoplura) from the western United States. J. Vect. Ecol. 32:366-370.Lewis RE. 1975. Notes on the geographical distribution and host preferences in the order Siphonaptera.  Part 6.  Ceratophyllidae. J. Med. Entomol. 11:658-676.Lewis RE, Wilson N. 2006. A review of the cerato-phyllid: subfamily Dactylopsyllinae. Part 2. Dac-tylopsylla Jordan, 1929, and Foxella Wagner, 1929 (Siphonaptera: Ceratophyllidae). Ann. Carnegie Mus. 75:203-229.Parker JC.  1968. Parasites of the gray squirrel in Vir-ginia. J. Parasitol. 54: 633-634.Reeves WK, Durden LA, Wrenn WJ. 2004. Ectoparasitic chiggers (Acari:Trombiculidae, Leeuwenhoekiidae), lice (Phthiraptera), and Hemiptera (Cimicidae and Reduviidae) from South Carolina, U.S.A. Zootaxa 647:1-20.Reisen WK, Best TL.  1973. An ectoparasite survey of Dipodomys ordii (Rodentia: Heteromyidae) from central Oklahoma. Ann. Entomol. Soc. Amer. 66:599-601.Smith VS, Light JE, Durden LA. 2008. Rodent louse diversity, phylogeny and cospeciation in the Manu Biosphere Reserve, Peru. Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 95: 598-610.Stark HE.  1970. A revision of the flea genus Thras-sis Jordan 1933 (Siphonaptera: Ceratophyllidae), with observations on ecology and relationships to plague. Univ. Calif. Publ. Entomol. 53:1-184.Traub R, Rothschild M, Haddow JF. 1983. The Roths-child Collection of fleas: The Ceratophyllidae: Keys to the genera and host relationships, with notes on their evolution, zoogeography and medical im-portance. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. 228 p.Tyler JD, Buscher, HN.  1975.  Parasites of vertebrates inhabiting prairie dog towns in Oklahoma. I. Ecto-parasites. Proc. Okla. Acad. Sci. 55:166-168. Whitaker JO Jr., Schmeltz LL. 1976. Ectoparasites of squirrels of the genus Sciurus from Indiana.  Proc. Indiana Acad. Sci. 85:431-436.Whitaker JO Jr., Walters BL, Castor LK, Ritzi CM, Wil-son N.  2007.  Host and distribution lists of mites (Acari), parasitic and phoretic, in the hair or on the skin of North American wild mammals north of Mexico: records since 1974.  Fac. Publ. H. W. Manter Lab. Parasitol. 1:1-173.  Received: August 5th, 2013, Accepted: November 3rd, 2013C.T. McALLISTER, L.A. DURDEN and M.B. CONNIOR28Proc. Okla. Acad. Sci. 93: pp 25-28  (2013)

New State Records for the Flea, Foxella ignota (Siphonaptera: Ceratophyllidae) from Oklahoma and Sucking Louse, Hoplopleura sciuiricola (Phthiraptera: Hoplopleuridae), from Iowa and Oklahoma

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New State Records for the Flea, Foxella ignota (Siphonaptera: Ceratophyllidae) from Oklahoma and Sucking Louse, Hoplopleura sciuiricola (Phthiraptera: Hoplopleuridae), from Iowa and Oklahoma

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