Serendipity with chewing lice (Phthiraptera: Menoponidae, Philopteridae) infesting rock pigeons and mourning doves (Aves: Columbiformes: Columbidae) in Manitoba, with new records for North America and Canada

An extensive survey of chewing lice from rock pigeon, Columba livia Gmelin, and mourning dove, Zenaida macroura (L.), carried out from 1994 to 2000 and from 2003 to 2006 in Manitoba, Canada, produced the following new records: Coloceras tovornikae Tendeiro for North America; Columbicola macrourae (Wilson), Hohorstiella lata (Piaget), H. paladinella Hill and Tuff, and Physconelloides zenaidurae (McGregor) for Canada; and Bonomiella columbae Emerson, Campanulotes compar (Burmeister), Columbicola baculoides (Paine), and C. columbae (L.) for Manitoba. We collected 25,418 lice of four species (C. compar, C. columbae, H. lata, and C. tovornikae) from 322 rock pigeons. The overall prevalence of infestation was 78.9%, 52.5%, and 23.3% for C. compar, C. columbae, and H. lata, respectively. Coloceras tovornikae was not discovered until 2003, after which its prevalence was 39.9% on 114 pigeons. We collected 1116 lice of five species (P. zenaidurae, C. baculoides, C. macrourae, H. paladinella, and B. columbae) from 117 mourning doves. Physconelloides zenaidurae was encountered most often (prevalence was 36.7%), while the prevalence of the other four species was 26.3%, 18.4%, 3.5%,and 2.6%, respectively.