PROC. ENTOMOL. SOC. WASH. 97(3), 1995, pp. 659-665 THE CHEWING LOUSE GENUS AOTIELLA (PHTHIRAPTERA: GYROPIDAE) FROM SOUTH AMERICAN NIGHT MONKEYS, AOTUS (PRIMATES: CEBIDAE) Roger D. Price and Robert M. Timm (RDP) Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota 55 108 (Current address) 4622 Kinkead Avenue, Fort Smith, Arkansas 72903; (RMT) Museum of Natural History and Department of Systematics and Ecology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045. Abstract.— The single previously recognized species of Aotiella Eichler, A. aotophilus (Ewing), and a second species, A. hershkovitzi new species, are described and illustrated. The type host for the former is a red-necked night monkey, Aotus azarai (Humboldt), from Bolivia and Argentina, and for the latter a gray-necked night monkey, A. trivirgatus (Humboldt), from Venezuela. The host and louse distributions are discussed. Key Words: Phthiraptera, Gyropidae, Aotiella, Cebidae, Aotus The only previously recognized species of the chewing louse genus Aotiella Eichler (Phthiraptera: Amblycera: Gyropidae) is .4. aotophilus (Ewing), which was described by Ewing (1924:25) as a Tetragyropus Ewing from a single immature specimen collected off a monkey '"Aotes boliviensis . . . taken in Bolivia by W. E. Moore some time before 1859." Not only was this species based on a single individual thought by Ewing to be the "last nymph," but that specimen sub-sequently was determined to be only a sec-ond-instar nymph. Ewing justified the new species description from a nymph because of the uniqueness of its being from a primate and the certainty of its breeding on that host. Subsequent collecting from night mon-keys (genus Aotus Illiger) has confirmed that they are indeed hosts for this louse genus. Wemeck (1936) presented a detailed de-scription of both sexes and of nymphal stages of what he presumed to be Gyropus aoto-philus based on specimens from Aotus tri-virgatus (Humboldt) from Brazil. Wemeck even sent Ewing a nymph to compare with the holotype and Ewing replied that Wer-neck's lice were indeed T. (= Gyropus) aoto-philus. Eichler (1949) seized upon the unique-ness of this louse taxon and described the new genus Aotiella for it, although he almost certainly did not actually examine speci-mens. He was especially impressed with the characteristic chaetotaxy of the female and. no doubt, with the unusual primate host. Hopkins and Clay (1952) accepted the va-lidity of the genus Aotiella, but erroneously listed Gyropus Nitzsch as the original genus instead of the correct one, Tetragyropus. Emerson and Price (1975) perpetuated the error of Gyropus as the original genus as given by Hopkins and Clay (1952). They did, however, provide excellent illustrations of both sexes of what they assumed to be A. aotophilus based on abundant material from seven specimens of Aotus trivirgatus captured in Venezuela. All previous workers apparently had been so fixated on the existence of a single species of Aotiella on night monkeys of the genus
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