Puzzling occurrence of two chewing lice species (Insecta, Phthiraptera, Ischnocera) on the Snow Partridge Lerwa lerwa (Galliformes, Phasianidae)?

Publication Type:Book Chapter
Year of Publication:2006
Authors:E. Mey
Editor:M. Hartman, Weipert J.
Book Title:Biodiversität und Naturausstattung im Himalaya
Volume:2
Pagination:55 - 71
Keywords:Chelopistes, Chewing lice, Einleitung, Galliformes, Himalaya, host-parasite-distribution, Lerwoecus, n. g., parasitophyletic, taxonomy
Abstract:

The ischnoceran chewing lice Chelopistes lervicola (Clay, 1941) (Goniodidae) and Lerwoecus meinertzhageni (Clay, 1938) (Philopteridae sensu lato, Degeeriella complex) live on the Snow Partridge Lerwa lerwa (Hodgson, 1833) from the Himalayas, which has until now been included in the Phasianidae. Reasons are given for creating the provisionally monotypic Lerwoecus nov. gen. for "Lagopoecus meinertzhageni Clay". Both species are apparently members of the endemic New World fauna, since their closest recent relatives are found only in the Nearctic and the Neotropics; the authenticity of their host origin has been confirmed several times. The former case is Chelopistes meleagridis (only known from Meleagris gallopavo and M. ocellata) along with the (here revalidated) species-rich Trichodomedea Carriker on Cracidae and Odontophoridae, while the latter is Colinicola Carriker on the Odontophoridae. In the light of this parasitophyletic finding, the position of the Snow Partridge within the Phasianidae (pheasants, subfamily partridges Perdicinae) is called into question for the first time and it is postulated that the species could have its roots in the complex of families composed of the Meleagrididae (turkeys), Odontophoridae (New World quails), and Cracidae (guans, curassows, and chachalacas). In the course of this paper the genera Chelopistes and Trichodomedea on the one hand, and Lagopoecus Waterston, Colinicola, and Lerwoecus nov. gen. on the other are compared in a differential diagnosis and their geographic-hospitalic distribution outlined. The publication of the descriptions of Colinicola Carriker and Trichodomedea Carriker in the same work, with a total of 22 nova species and 12 nova subspecies was not in 1945, as generally assumed in the literature, but in 1946. This emendation has no nomenclatural consequences. The often published supposition that Chelopistes is more closely related to the lipeurids esp. "Oxylipeurus" (Philopteridae s. l.), which inhabit the flight feathers, than it is to the Goniodidae, cannot be supported from the viewpoint of comparative morphology. Reasons are given why Lagopoecus californicus (Kellogg & Chapman, 1899) and L. gambelii Emerson, 1949 should be moved to the genus Colinicola Carriker.

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