Colpocephalum nanum Piaget, 1890

Ošlejšková, Lucie, Krištofík, Ján, Trnka, Alfréd & Sychra, Oldřich, 2021, An annotated checklist of chewing lice (Phthiraptera: Amblycera, Ischnocera) from Slovakia, Zootaxa 5069 (1), pp. 1-80 : 26

Colpocephalum nanum Piaget, 1890

Host: Buteo lagopus (Pontoppidan, 1763) .

Ref.: Balát (1956) as Colpocephalum sp. ? flavescens ; Straka (1987) as Coplocephalum sp.; this paper.

Locations: Myslenice, 4 Feb. 1951; Bratislava, 12 Dec. 1952 ( Balát 1956); Martin, 24 Jan. 1977 (Straka Coll., AKMM); Trnava, 15–28 Feb. 1939 (Pfleger Coll., SNMB) .

Notes: Balát (1956) recorded Colpocephalum sp. from this host, noting that it may have been C. flavescens . Unfortunately, we cannot verify it, because there is no slide with Colpocephalum from Buteo lagopus in Balát’s Collection. Considering that C. flavescens is a parasite of eagles of the genera Aquila and Haliaeetus ( Price et al. 2003: 98) , we believe that Balát’s tentative identification is incorrect and that these lice are most likely C. nanum , a common parasite of B. lagopus ( Price et al. 2003: 100) . Furthermore, the Pfleger Collection includes slides with C. nanum from B. lagopus . Therefore, we can confirm that this is a valid host-louse association for Slovakia, as well as the first record of Colpocephalum nanum from Slovakia.