Ornithonyssus Sambon, 1928

Mašán, Peter, Fenďa, Peter, Krištofík, Ján & Halliday, Bruce, 2014, A review of the ectoparasitic mites (Acari: Dermanyssoidea) associated with birds and their nests in Slovakia, with notes on identification of some species, Zootaxa 3893 (1), pp. 77-100 : 84

Genus: Ornithonyssus Sambon, 1928

Ornithonyssus Sambon, 1928: 105 .

Type species: Dermanyssus sylviarum Canestrini & Fanzago, 1877 .

The genus Ornithonyssus includes obligatorily haematophagous mites that are ectoparasites of birds and mammals. It contains up to 30 named species, distributed especially throughout the Neotropical and Nearctic Regions. The concept of Ornithonyssus used here follows the classification by Micherdziński (1980). That concept is considerably wider than that of Radovsky (2010), which divides Ornithonyssus into several separate genera. Three identified species are found in Slovakia, and all are considered to be cosmopolitan, namely O. bacoti , O. bursa and O. sylviarum ( Radovsky 2010) . The other Slovak member of the genus, Ornithonyssus pipistrelli , is essentially a parasite of vespertilionid bats, and can occasionally be found on some birds and dormice ( Rodentia , Gliridae ) and their nests, mainly on those nesting in natural tree hollows and artificial nest boxes used by bats for shelter.