Myrsidea violaceae Price & Dalgleish, 2006

Literak, Ivan, 2017, Where are the species limits? Morphology versus genetics in Neotropical chewing lice of the genus Myrsidea (Phthiraptera: Menoponidae), with description of three new species, Zootaxa 4324 (1), pp. 161-179 : 173-174

Myrsidea violaceae Price & Dalgleish, 2006

Myrsidea violaceae Price & Dalgleish, 2006: 9 .

Myrsidea violaceae Price & Dalgleish, 2006 : Sychra et al. (2007: 63), Kounek et al. (2011: 14 ).

Type host: Euphonia violacea (Linnaeus, 1758) —Violaceous euphonia (Fringillidae) .

Type locality. Simla Biological Station , Trinidad.

Material examined. Ex Euphonia hirundinacea (Lesson, 1832) —Yellow-throated euphonia (Fringillidae) : 1♂, Atlántida, Tela, Botanical Garden Lancetilla, Honduras (15°44' N 87°27' W), 16 Aug. 2014, I. Literak.

Remarks. This species was previously recorded from Trinidad and Costa Rica ( Price & Dalgleish 2006; Sychra et al. 2007; Kounek et al. 2011). This is the first record of M. violaceae from Honduras.

A portion of COI gene was sequenced from our single specimen of Myrsidea violaceae from Euphonia hirundinacea (GenBank accession number KY 113137 ). Comparing our sequence with other known sequences of Neotropical Myrsidea , the closest was that of Myrsidea rozsai Price & Johnson, 2009 from Euphonia lanniirostris (A/N FJ 171282 ), with a sequence divergence of 11.9%. This divergence is on the border of the interspecific variation limit for Myrsidea species as proposed in this paper. More specimens of Myrsidea from the above and other species of Euphonia are needed to resolve the taxonomic status of these two nominal species, based on molecular and morphological data.

Our specimen differs from descriptions of M. violaceae by setal counts and dimensions, as follows (overall data from Price & Dalgleish 2 0 0 6, Sychra et al. 2007, and Kounek et al. 2011 are in parentheses): Male (n = 1). Tergal setae: VIII, 12 (14–18). Sternal setae: VIII+IX, 15 (7–14). Dimensions: POW, 0.31 (0.29– 0.30); TL, 1.23 (1.11–1.21).