A New Species ofFelicola(Phthiraptera: Ischnocera: Trichodectidae) from the Forest Giant Pouched Rat (Cricetomys emini) in Cameroon, Africa and a Redescription ofFelicola hopkinsiBedford, 1936

Abstract

Of the 56 described species in the genus Felicola, 55 are parasites of carnivores and 1 has been described from a primate (Perez and Palma, 2001). To date, no representative of this genus has been reported from a rodent. Such high host specificity is not uncommon among chewing lice, especially the trichodectids. As pointed out by Hopkins (1949), “each species of Trichodectidae occurs normally as a rule, on only one species of host, but occasionally on several hosts which, though very closely related, are not conspecific.” In the present study, 1 of 15 Forest Giant Pouched Rats (Cricetomys emini Wrough ton 1910) from Bawa, West Province, Cameroon (approx. 5o20'N, 9o 54'E), purchased as food items by the first author during May 2007, was infested with 10 chewing lice, 6 females (5 adults and 1 juvenile) and 4 males (2 adults and 2 juveniles). This region constitutes a montane tropical forest lying along a volcanic ridge in western Cameroon. Tchuinkam et al. (2010) described the ge og raphy and climate of the region. Exceedingly little information is available on the ectoparasitic fauna of C. emini. Cook and Richardson (2010) reported on epifaunistic earwigs associated with these individual rats. No other ectoparasites were observed on the rat infested with chewing lice. Lice were collected with watchmaker’s forceps and fixed in 70% ethanol. Soft tissues were dissolved with a 20% aqueous solution of potassium hydroxide. Speci mens were stained with acid fuchsin, cleared in clove oil, and mounted in Canada balsam as described by Palma (1978). Preliminary study revealed the lice to represent a previously undescribed species in the genus Felicola. Comparison to descriptions of all previously described species of Felicola (Price, 2003) re vealed the new species to be most morphologically similar to Felicola hopkinsi Bedford, 1936. The original description of F. hopkinsi was based on 2 individuals, a male and female collected from an African Palm Civet (Nandinia binotata arborea) in Kampala, Uganda in 1933. Although Bedford (1936) did not reference deposition of type specimens in his original description of F. hopkinsi, specimens designated in writing on the original slide labels as the male holotype and