Nirmus eustigma Kellogg, 1896

Bush, Sarah E., 2017, Morphological revision of the hyperdiverse Brueelia - complex (Insecta: Phthiraptera: Ischnocera: Philopteridae) with new taxa, checklists and generic key, Zootaxa 4313 (1), pp. 1-443 : 318

Nirmus eustigma Kellogg, 1896

Type host. Calypte anna (Lesson, 1829) — Anna’s hummingbird.

Remarks. In the original illustration of this species, the head is reminiscent of Brueelia s. str., but the abdominal chaetotaxy differs markedly from Brueelia s. str. The holotype is very poorly preserved, and virtually all important characters are impossible to discern. The head shape appears most similar to that commonly found in Motmotnirmus , but the description states that it has only one pair of temporal macrosetae; the state of the mts is hard to assess in the type, but mts 2 does not appear to be a macroseta on either side of the head. Thus, the type cannot be identified with certainty even to genus, and we cannot presently include it in any of the genera treated here. Considering that no species of the Brueelia -complex is known from hummingbirds, it seems likely that the holotype is an unidentifiable straggler or contaminant.

Boyd et al. (1956) identified lice collected from Cyanocitta cristata ( Linnaeus, 1758) as Degeeriella eustigma , with which they synonymized with Degeeriella picturata ( Osborn, 1896) . Since no illustrations or descriptions were provided from their material, we do not accept this synonymy as we cannot ascertain whether their material was conspecific with either of these species, or with Olivinirmus clayae , which regularly occurs on Cyanocitta cristata .