Taxonomic revision of Old World members of the feather louse genus Columbicola (Phthiraptera: Ischnocera), including descriptions of eight new species

Abstract

The feather louse genus Columbicola Ewing is revised and divided into 24 species groups, with descriptions and illustrations provided for the 19 Old World species groups. Eight new species are described; these species and their respective type hosts are: C. browni ex Columba arquatrix Temminck, C. arnoldi ex Macropygia nigrirostris Salvadori, C. galei ex Gymnophaps albertisii Salvadori, C. palmai ex Leucosarcia melanoleuca (Latham), C. mendesi ex Ducula concinna (Wallace), C. reedi ex Ptilinopus magnificus (Temminck), C. davisae ex Treron curvirostra nipalensis (Hodgson), and C. wecksteini ex Ptilinopus rivoli (Prévost). Columbicola juliusriemeri Eichler and Mrosek and C. longiceps sikoraae Eichler are removed from synonymy and recognized as valid species. Columbicola longisetaceus (Piaget) is placed as a junior synonym of C. columbae (L.), C. fradeorum Tendeiro as a junior synonym of C. mjoebergi Eichler, and C. meinertzhageni parvus Tendeiro as a junior synonym of C. meinertzhageni Tendeiro. We provide a key to the 63 valid Old World species, and a table of host associations for the 77 valid Columbicola species of the world.

Keywords:

• Philopteridae
• Columbiformes
• chewing lice
• birds
• host specificity

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank N. Adams (NMNH), P. Brown (BMNH), D. Arnold (OSU), R. Palma (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington), L. Mendes (Instituto De Investigação Cientifica Tropical, Lisbon), P. Clausen (UM), and B. Gustafsson (Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet, Stockholm) for the loan of many valuable specimens. We thank Terry Chesser, Ian Mason, and John Wombey for helping us check Figbirds for lice in Australia. We also thank R. E. Elbel (UU) for the loan of obscure manuscripts, and D. Gardiner, S. Zalah, K. Wackford, and T. F. Domingues for help with the translation of manuscripts. We are grateful to B. Demarest, M. Gardiner, L. Morrison, and D. Reed for computer assistance, and we thank S. Bush, K. Johnson, B. Moyer, A. Pacejka, and D. Reed for encouragement and discussion. K. Johnson tested the accuracy of the key. Finally, the senior author would like to thank M. Davis for three years of encouragement and support during this project, which represents his M.S. thesis work. This work was supported by NSF Awards DEB–9703003, DEB–0107947, and DEB–0118794 to DHC.