Hirstionyssus butantanensis ( Fonseca, 1932 )

Hirstionyssus butantanensis ( Fonseca, 1932)

? Acarus musculi Schrank 1803 : Fauna Boica, 3: 208.

Ichoronyssus butantanensis Fonseca 1932: 135 , textfig.

Liponyssus latiscutatus de Meillon & Lavoipierre 1944: 62 , fig. 5 A.

Ichoronyssus orcadensis Turk 1946: 786 , figs 1–7.

Hirstionyssus musculi (Johnston, 1849) — Bregetova 1956: 185, 194, figs 402, 437–441, 476–478 (partim).

Hirstionyssus latiscutatus — Fonseca 1948: 298; Evans & Till 1966: 291, fig. 71, A, B,72; Allred 1969: 242; Herrin 1970: 422, figs 57–59; Zuevsky 1970: 1343, fig. 1; Koroleva 1977: 137, figs 4 (2), 6 (3); Senotrusova 1987: 104, fig. 51; Goncharova et al. 1991: 77.

Echinonyssus butantanensis — Tenorio 1984: 265; Mašán & Fend’a 2010: 121, figs 113–116.

Type locality: Brazil, Sao Paulo .

Type series: Brazil, Sao Paulo, Butantan Institute .

Type host: Mus musculus (Linnaeus, 1758) , albino morph (the white mouse)

Host range: H. butantanensis prefers murine rodents of the genera Mus and Rattus ( Mašán & Fend’a 2010).

Distribution: Virtually cosmopolitan; the tight association of H. butantanensis with synanthropic rodents possibly explains its finding from areas far remoted from the type locality, e.g. in New Zealand ( Tenquist & Charleston 2001). In Asiatic Russia, the species has been known (as H. latiscutatus ) from Western Siberia and the southern parts of Eastern Siberia ( Davydova & Nikol’sky 1986; Nikulina 2004).

Notes: In Russian parasitological and acarological literature the name H. butantanensis is not in common use; most authors have used the name H. latiscutatus (see, for example, Zuevsky 1970; Nikulina 2004).

The identity of Schrank’s (1803) mite species Acarus musculi ( type host—the house mouse) is enigmatic due to the brevity of its original description and loss of the type series. Some authors (e.g. Baker & Wharton 1952) assigned this species to the genus Steatonyssus Kolenati, 1858 . However, Steatonyssus mites are obligatory parasites of bats, and the finding of a member of this genus on the skin of a house mouse is very unlikely ( Till & Evans 1964).