Pectinopygus brevicornis (Denny, 1842)

Karatepe, Mustafa, Dik, Bilal & Karatepe, Bilge, 2017, Chewing lice species (Phthiraptera) found on a European Shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis) in Turkey: new records of a genus and two species for the Turkish fauna of Phthiraptera, Turkish Journal of Zoology 41 (3), pp. 576-582 : 578-581

Pectinopygus brevicornis (Denny, 1842) ( Figures 6–9)

Host: Phalacrocorax aristotelis .

Material investigated: 8♀♀, 14♂♂, 6N.

Female: It is a relatively small species; the body is well chitinized ( Figure 6).

The head is triangular and narrower towards the front. Hyaline margin is present. Mandible is well developed, especially the end part. The antennae are 5-segmented; the first segment is thicker than the others, the third and the fourth segments are distinctively shorter than the others. The eyes, located just behind the antennae, are apparent. The ocular seta is of medium length. The hypopharyngeal sclerite is strongly chitinized. The gular plate is rounded and towards the front is a bit more chitinized and pointed.

The prothorax is trapezoidal, narrowing slightly to the front; the posterior is close to being flat with a slight convex curve. In the posterolateral angle, a long seta and a single spine are present. The pterothorax is also trapezoidal; it is larger towards the back, and the posterolateral angles are slightly rounded.

In the posterolateral angle, a hair bundle composed of a single long seta and 5 very long setae are present on both sides. The prosternal plate is underdeveloped; it has 3–5 long hairs in the posterior. The pterosternal plate is also underdeveloped. The legs are short and strong; they have 2 short claws each on the ends.

The abdomen is cylindrical. The segmentation is evident. The segments are divided into two by a thin line in the medial. In the medial, there are two very long tergal setae on each side. In the first six segments in the medial, there are two sternal setae on both sides.

In the first two segments, there are no postspiracular setae, while the setae on the 4th and 5th segments are a bit shorter than the others.

Male: Although it resembles the female, the structures of the antennae and the abdominal segments separate it from the female ( Figure 7). The 1st segment of the antenna is thicker than longer compared to the others, while the 4th and 5th segments are markedly thinner than the others ( Figure 8 ). Terga II–IV are vertically divided into two in the middle, while other segments are in single pieces. The male genitalia are as seen in Figure 9 .

The number of studies carried out on the lice of the wild birds in Turkey has been steadily increasing; however, the number of bird species investigated and the number of lice species reported have only reached 200 and 150 respectively during the last decades. More than half of the bird species found in Turkey have not been examined in relation to lice, either because lice have not been found on some bird species investigated or the bird species described in the past have not been detected. The results of the literature review showed that not a single species of the order Suliformes , which includes the European Shag, has been studied with respect to lice. Therefore, this study is the first study to focus on the lice of the European Shag in Turkey.

Studies conducted in different countries throughout the world on various species in the Phalacrocoracidae family of sea birds have shown the presence of the following louse species: P. insularis and E. pellucida in P. pelagicus ( Choe and Kim, 1987) ; P. brevicornis in P. aristotelis ( Martin Mateo, 1992) ; E. pellucida , P. transitans , and P. caputincisum in P. bougainvillii ( Sepulveda et al., 1997) ; P. incomposita , P. farallonii , and E. pellucida in P. auritus ( Kuiken et al., 1999) ; P. gyricornis and E. pellucida in P. carbo novaehollandiae ( Galloway, 2005) ; P. gyricornis in P.carbo ( Dik and Halajian, 2013) ; and finally E. nancyae and P. socotranus in P. nigrogularis (Nasser, 2015; Nasser et al., 2015).

Various species of chewing lice belonging to the genera Eidmanniella , Pectinopygus , Piagetiella , and Quadraceps have been reported to parasitize on cormorants (Price et al., 2003). In studies conducted in Turkey, louse species from the genera Piagetiella and the Pectinopygus that parasitize on cormorants were encountered in bird species from the order Pelecaniformes . The lice recorded on those birds were P. titan from the genus Piagetiella and P. forficulatus from the genus Pectinopygus (Dik, 2006; Dik and Uslu, 2006, 2008; Dik et al., 2013; Girişgin et al., 2013). Among the lice collected from P. aristotelis in this study, E. pellucida and P. brevicornis samples were also recorded.

Price et al. (2003) reported that two louse species parasitize the European Shag. Both of those louse species were detected on the European Shag observed in this study. Of these species, E. pellucida has been described as present on 14 different species of cormorants, while the other species, P. brevicornis , has been found only on the European Shag.

Figures

Figure 8. Pectinopygus brevicornis male, head.

Figure 9. Pectinopygus brevicornis male, genitalia.