New records of feather mites (Acari: Astigmata) from Brazil, with description of a new species from the Black Vulture (Aves: Cathartidae)

Abstract

Feather mites (Acari: Astigmata: Analgoidea and Pterolichoidea) live in the plumage and on the skin of birds. Because of the huge diversity of birds in Brazil, several groups still remain almost unexplored concerning their feather mites. In this paper we describe a new feather mite species, Cathartacarus coragyps sp. n. (Gabuciniidae), from the Black Vulture, Coragyps atratus (Bechstein) (Cathartiformes, Cathartidae), and report seven species new for Brazil from birds of the orders Charadriiformes and Cariamiformes: Brephosceles chilensis Peterson, 1971 (Alloptidae), Bychovskiata chilensis Mironov and Dabert, 1995 (Avenzoariidae), Magimelia chilensis Dabert et al., 2002 (Pterolichidae), Sokoloviana chilensis Dabert and Ehrnsberger, 1996 (Ptiloxenidae), and Leptosphyra centropoda (Mégnin, 1877) (Xolalgidae) from the Southern Lapwing, Vanellus chilensis (Molina), and Gabuciniella camptoloba Gaud and Atyeo, 1996 from the Red-legged Seriema, Cariama cristata (Linnaeus).

http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:1F953DFC-7F7E-4A18-A882-0891557F50F6

Keywords:

• Ectoparasites
• symbionts
• biodiversity
• systematics
• taxonomy
• Cathartacarus
• Coragyps atratus
• Cariama cristata
• Vanellus chilensis

Acknowledgement

We wish to thank Msc. David Vilas Boas-Filho for collecting and making available the bird material used in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the CAPES–Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement (scholarship to LGAP), FAPESP–São Paulo Research Foundation [grant to FAH– 2011/50145-0], and to SVM by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research [RFBR No 13-04-00608].