''Strigiphilus'' is a genus of chewing louse in the suborder
Ischnocera
The Ischnocera is a large superfamily of lice. They are mostly parasitic on birds, but including a large family (the Trichodectidae) parasitic on mammals. The genus '' Trichophilopterus'' is also found on mammals (lemurs), but probably belongs ...
. It was
circumscribed
In geometry, the circumscribed circle or circumcircle of a polygon is a circle that passes through all the vertices of the polygon. The center of this circle is called the circumcenter and its radius is called the circumradius.
Not every polyg ...
in 1910 by
Eric Mjöberg
Eric Georg Mjöberg (6 August 1882 – 8 July 1938) was a Swedish zoologist and ethnographer who led the first Swedish scientific expeditions to Australia in the early 1900s, and worked in Indonesia. The plant ''Vaccinium mjoebergii'' J.J.Sm. was ...
.
Taxonomic history
Mjöberg initially circumscribed ''Strigiphilus'' as a subgenus of the genus he referred to as ''Docophorus''
(now known as ''
Philopterus'').
In a 1966 paper,
Theresa Clay
Theresa Rachel "Tess" Clay (7 February 1911 – 17 March 1995) was an English entomologist. She was introduced to zoology by her older relative, the ornithologist and adventurer Richard Meinertzhagen, with whom she had an unusually close relati ...
recognized 29 species and grouped them into the following nine
species group
In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...
s:
* ''
Strigiphilus rostratus'' group
* ''
Strigiphilus heterocerus'' group
* ''
Strigiphilus cursor
''Strigiphilus'' is a genus of chewing louse in the suborder Ischnocera. It was circumscribed in 1910 by Eric Mjöberg.
Taxonomic history
Mjöberg initially circumscribed ''Strigiphilus'' as a subgenus of the genus he referred to as ''Docophorus ...
'' group
* ''
Strigiphilus crenulatus'' group
* ''
Strigiphilus macrogenitalis
''Strigiphilus'' is a genus of chewing louse in the suborder Ischnocera. It was circumscribed in 1910 by Eric Mjöberg.
Taxonomic history
Mjöberg initially circumscribed ''Strigiphilus'' as a subgenus of the genus he referred to as ''Docophorus ...
'' group
* ''
Strigiphilus strigis'' group
* ''
Strigiphilus siamensis'' group
* ''
Strigiphilus ketupae'' group
* ''
Strigiphilus cursitans'' group
The largest group is the ''S. curstans'' group.
Hosts
''Strigiphilus'' is the only genus of Ischnocera to exclusively
parasitize
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has c ...
owls.
Species
, there are approximately fifty species of ''Strigiphilus''.
Species include:
* ''
Strigiphilus garylarsoni
''Strigiphilus garylarsoni'' is a species of chewing louse found only on owls. The species has no common name.
The species was first described by biologist Dale H. Clayton in 1990.
Host
Its type host is the Northern white-faced owl (''Ptilopsi ...
''
(''cursitans'' group)
References
Further reading
*
*
Lice
Parasites of birds
{{louse-stub