Kramerella lunulata (Haller, 1878)

Eren, Gökhan, Öztürk, Mehmet, Mironov, Sergey V., Nisbet, Hatice Özlem & Açici, Mustafa, 2023, New records of feather mites (Sarcoptiformes: Astigmata) from some birds in Türkiye, Acarological Studies 5 (2), pp. 58-68 : 63

Kramerella lunulata (Haller, 1878)

Materials examined. 1 male and 1 tritonymph from flight feathers of the little owl, Athene noctua (Scopoli, 1769) ( Strigiformes : Strigidae ), Samsun, Türkiye, 20 February 2022, coll. M. Öztürk (as shown in Fig. 6 ).

Remarks. The genus Kramerella currently includes 10 species associated with birds of the orders Strigiformes ( Dubinin, 1953; Gaud, 1980; Gaud and Atyeo, 1996; Černý and Wiesner, 1992). In the previous studies in Africa and Eurasia, Kramerella aluconis was found on Strix aluco , and K. lunulata was formally reported from several owl species, Athene noctua (Scopoli, 1769) , Bubo lacteus (Temminck, 1820) , Otus scops (Linnaeus, 1758) , and Tyto alba (Scopoli, 1769) , as was summarized by Philips (2000). However, all subspecies, formerly recognized in K. lunulata and restricted to particular genera of owls ( Dubinin, 1953), at present are considered full species ( Gaud, 1980). Therefore, the reports of K. lunulata on hosts other than owls of the genus Athene , quite probabaly represent records of other Kramerella species. Kramerella aluconis on S. aluco and K. lunulata on its type host, A. noctua , are reported herein for the first time in Türkiye.

Figures

Figure 6. Kramerella species—A-B. Kramerella aluconis, male and female, C. Kramerella lunulata, male (scale bars: 100).