PROC. ENTOMOL. SOC. WASH. 107(3), 2005, pp. 565-571 THE GENUS RAMPHASTICOLA CARRIKER (PHTHIRAPTERA: AMBLYCERA: MENOPONIDAE) FROM THE TOUCANS (PICIFORMES: RAMPHASTIDAE), WITH DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES Ronald A. Hellenthal, Roger D. Price, and Jason D. Weckstein (RAH) Department of Biological Sciences, P.O. Box 369, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556-0369, U.S.A. (e-mail:
[email protected]); (RDF) 4202 Stanard Circle, Fort Smith, AR 72903-1906, U.S.A. (e-mail:
[email protected]); (JDW) Illinois Natural History Survey, 607 East Peabody Drive, Champaign, IL 61820-6970, U.S.A. (e-mail:
[email protected]) Abstract. — The diagnostic characteristics of the genus Ramphasticola Carriker are re-evaluated. They are of sufficient magnitude to justify the removal of Ramphasticola from synonymy with Myrsidea Waterston and merit its recognition as a distinct genus. The currently recognized three species of Ramphasticola are illustrated and redescribed. A new species, R. moylei, from the type host Ramphastos tucanus cuvieri Wagler in Peru, is described. Key Words: chewing lice, Ramphasticola, Phthiraptera, Menoponidae, toucans, Ram-phastidae The chewing lice of the genus Myrsidea Waterston from toucans have not been the subject of systematic work for over 40 years. There are more than 200 species of the genus recognized, with the majority of these on avian hosts within the Passerifor-mes. Three species are known from hum-mingbirds (Apodiformes: Trochilidae) (Dal-gleish and Price 2003) and 14 Myrsidea names currently are associated with species on toucans (Piciformes: Ramphastidae). Six of these originally were described in the ge-nus Ramphasticola Carriker and the re-maining eight were placed in what we now consider as typical Myrsidea (see Price et al. 2003). Hopkins and Clay (1952) did not recog-nize Ramphasticola as a distinct genus, in-cluding it within the Myrsidea. Without the benefit of having seen any material of Ram-phasticola and ignoring the opinion of Car-riker (Carriker and Diaz-Ungria 1961), Price et al. (2003) followed Hopkins and Clay (1952) and maintained Ramphasticola as a junior synonym of Myrsidea. However, having now studied Carriker's original type specimens and other material for all six Ramphasticola names, we concur with Car-riker that Ramphasticola merits generic sta-tus. It is our purpose here to give diagnostic details for the three species that we recog-nize to support the description of a new species. The redescriptions are accompa-nied by dorsoventral illustrations of female body shape, with details of the taxonomi-cally important thoracic area. Male recog-nition is quite tenuous. Although there are some useful characters for males. Ram-phasticola females are most easily and re-liably ideiititied to species. In the following descriptions, all mea-surements arc in niillinietcrs. Abbre\ iations
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