Sathrax durus Johnson, 1964

Kazim, Abdul-Rahman, Houssaini, Jamal, Tappe, Dennis & Heo, Chong-Chin, 2022, An annotated checklist of sucking lice (Phthiraptera: Anoplura) from domestic and wild mammals in Malaysia, with lists of hosts and pathogens, Zootaxa 5214 (3), pp. 301-336 : 321

Sathrax durus Johnson, 1964

Sathrax durus Johnson, 1964: 81 , figs 67–75.

Tupaiphthirus dolabrifer Chin, 1975 : figs 1 –8.

Sathrax durus Johnson, 1964 ; Durden & Musser 1994: 75.

Type host: Tupaia glis (Diard & Duvaucel, 1820) —Common treeshrew.

Malaysian hosts: Tupaia glis , Rattus exulans (Peale, 1848) .

Malaysian localities: Bukit Lagong Forest Reserve &, Ulu Langat Forest Reserve. (Selangor) Peninsular Malaysia ( Johnson, 1964); “Maxwell’s Hill”, Bukit Larut (Perak) Peninsular Malaysia ( Johnson, 1964).

Geographical distribution: Indonesia (Kalimantan), Malaysia, People’s Republic of China (Yunnan Province), Vietnam ( Durden & Musser 1994; Price & Graham 1997; Guo et al. 2004a,b; Dong et al. 2009; Zuo et al. 2011).

Remarks: The adult male and female of Sathrax durus were described and illustrated by Johnson (1964). Besides the type host, S. durus has been recorded from northern treeshrews, Tupaia belangeri (Wagner, 1841) in China ( Guo et al. 2004a,b; Dong et al. 2009; Zuo et al. 2011). Further, Madinah et al. (2014) listed three nymphs of a Sathrax sp. collected from Rattus exulans in the Malaysian tropical rainforests, but they did not discuss the fact that R. exulans is an unlikely natural host for a louse species from shrews. Considering the current patchy geographical distribution of S. durus , and the large number of known species of Tupaia , more collections are needed to determine the complete host range and distribution of this louse species in the Oriental Region.

In a scanning electron microscopy study of sucking lice parasitic on treeshrews, Durden (1984) suggested that the cephalic interspine outgrowths on the head of S. durus enabled the parasite to grip on the host epidermis, instead of interlocking with the host underfur hairs.