Nycteridocaulus Atyeo, 1966

Mironov, Sergey V. & Galloway, Terry D., 2020, Two new feather mites of the subfamily Proctophyllodinae (Acariformes: Proctophyllodidae) from the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher Empidonax flaviventris (Passeriformes: Tyrannidae) in Canada, Acarologia 60 (4), pp. 878-891 : 879-880

Genus Nycteridocaulus Atyeo, 1966

Type species: Nycteridocaulus tyranni Atyeo, 1966 , by original designation.

Nycteridocaulus is the most species­rich genus within the Nycteridocaulus generic group,

one of two major phylogenetic lineages of the subfamily Proctophyllodinae associated with suboscine passerines in the New World ( Klimov et al. 2017 ; Mironov and Bermúdez 2018, 2020). Prior to the present study, the genus Nycteridocaulus included 15 species mainly associated with suboscine passerines. Of them, 12 species are distributed on tyrant flycatchers and allies (Tyrannides: Thamnophilidae , Tyrannidae , and Tytyridae); one species is known from ovenbirds (Furnariides: Furnariidae ) and two on oscine passerines of the families Parulidae and Troglodytidae (Atyeo 1966; Atyeo and Gaud 1968 ; De Alzuet and Brandetti 1986 ; Hernandes 2014; Mironov et al. 2017). Nycteridocaulus tyranni commonly infests tyrant flycatchers, and two records on birds of the families Passerellidae and Vireonidae by Atyeo (1966), based on collections from museum skins, are questionable and require verification.

The clearest diagnostic feature of the genus Nycteridocaulus is the genital arch in males shaped as a recurved bow and the whole genital apparatus resembling a flying bat, the basis for the name of the genus. Among proctophyllodines of the Nycteridocaulus group, this genus is the most diverse in the structure of the opisthosomal lobes and terminal lamellae, varying from short rectangular membranes, as in the new species described below, to long leaf­like projections. A key to most presently known species was provided by Mironov et al. (2017).