Gyropus parasetosus Werneck, 1935

Valim, Michel P. & Linardi, Pedro Marcos, 2008, A taxonomic catalog, including host and geographic distribution, of the species of the genus Gyropus Nitzsch (Phthiraptera: Amblycera: Gyropidae), Zootaxa 1899, pp. 1-24 : 13

Gyropus parasetosus Werneck, 1935 a

Gyropus parasetosus Werneck 1935a: 598 (brief description). Type locality: Brazil, Mato Grosso, Tapirapoã. Type host: Proechimys spinosus (= Proechimys longicaudatus (Rengger)) . Typology: Holotype male, ‘allotype’ female, three female, and fourteen nymphal paratypes held by FIOC. One female paratype was donated to BMNH.

Werneck 1935b: 428 (full description), fig. 21 (female habitus, dorso-ventral view), fig. 22 (female head, dorso-ventral view), fig. 23 (female sternal plates), fig. 24 (female terminalia, ventral view), fig. 25 (male genitalia, dorsal view). Werneck 1936a: 430 (citation). Werneck 1948: 57 (hosts records), fig, 34 (male habitus, dorso-ventral view), fig. 35 (male genitalia, dorsal view). Hopkins and Clay 1952: 161 (checklist). Emerson and Price 1981: 43 (host-parasite checklist). Cicchino and Castro 1990: 322 (checklist of Gyropus species on Echimyidae ). Cardoso-de-Almeida et al. 2003: 235 (list of type material in Instituto Oswaldo Cruz). Price et al. 2003: 77 (checklist).

Distribution. BRAZIL (Mato Grosso).

Hosts. Proechimys longicaudatus , + P. brevicauda , + P. guyannensis , + P. trinitatus , + P. oris (Echimyidae) , + Oryzomys laticeps (Cricetidae) .

Remarks. The type host of G. parasetosus is a member of the family Echimyidae . Werneck (1948: 58) included a cricetid as its host, Oryzomys laticeps , in Pará state, Brazil. However, in Werneck’s collection there is one male from this host and locality, and other unpublished records include: three males from Metachirus nudicaudatus (Didelphidae) and one female from Sciurus aestuans (Sciuridae) , all from Pará, Brazil. These unpublished stragglers or contaminants from Werneck’s material reinforce our opinion that Oryzomys laticeps is the wrong host for G. parasetosus . Although Werneck (1948: 57) had said that he examined many individuals collected from two P. oris there is only one slide with one immature in his collection. This leads us to reject this species as a regular host until adults can be collected from this spiny-rat species. Two species of hosts for G. parasetosus , P. guyannensis and P. trinitatus , were cited only in checklists without mentioning the former material examined ( Emerson and Price 1981: 43; Price et al. 2003: 77, respectively). The latter host species is represented in Werneck’s collection by two samples from Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela, composed of males and females (unpublished data). However, these specimens belong, probably, to an undescribed species. Therefore, we believe it is prudent to consider the type host as the only valid host for this louse species.