Abstract
Bat ectoparasites have a complex natural history narrowly tied to their hosts at ecological, behavioral, and evolutionary scales. As flying and social organisms, bats represent a potential mechanism of dispersal, a source of feeding, and a roost for ectoparasite reproduction. The chiggerflea Hectopsylla pulex (Siphonaptera: Tungidae) is widely distributed across the Neotropics. Females of this ectoparasite have been found in their neosomal form on bats of the family Molossidae, Noctilionidae, Phyllostomidae, and Vespertilionidae. Here we present the record of infestation of chiggerfleas on the Argentine bat, Eptesicus furinalis (Vespertilionidae) in Colombia, representing the first record of the flea on this species, and providing novel genetic information of this poorly known flea species.
Highlights
The coexistence within species is mainly determined by abiotic and biotic filters that act as stabilizing agents of fitness and niche differences (HilleRisLambers et al, 2012)
We report an individual of the Argentine brown bat, Eptesicus furinalis D’Orbigny & Gervais, 1847, infested with Hectopsylla pulex on a village located at 1,590 m in the western slopes of the Central Cordillera, Northern Andes of Colombia
The Argentine brown bat, E. furinalis was infested with seven females of H. pulex, five of them distributed on the dorsal surface at the base of the right ear and the remaining two on the dorsal surface at the base of the left ear (Fig. 2)
Summary
The coexistence within species is mainly determined by abiotic and biotic filters that act as stabilizing agents of fitness and niche differences (HilleRisLambers et al, 2012). In the world of an ectoparasite, a host represents a habitat filter with potential resources, complex movement patterns, varied social systems, roosting behaviors, and immunologic responses (Balashov, 2006; Dick & Ditmar, 2014). Several host features could induce ectoparasite infections: first, hosts with high mobility enhance parasite colonization of new habitats (Presley & Willig, 2008). Selection for a host roosting site with suitable environmental conditions for development could induce an ectoparasite interaction (Patterson et al, 2007). When social hosts are spatially aggregated, parasite infections are likely to increase between individuals of the same and different sex, and between species
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