Oeciacus vicarius Horvath

Oconee Co., Seneca River Bridge, 7 June 2004, ex Petrochelidon pyrrhonota Vieillot, coll. W.K. Reeves and M.P. Nelder; Hwy 188 bridge, 14 July 2004, ex P. pyrrhonota nest, coll. J. Korecki.

Oeciacus vicarius is primarily an ectoparasite of cliff swallows but rarely infests barn swallow nests (Usinger, 1966). Nestling swallows can die from blood loss due to O. vicarius infestations and Fort Morgan virus was isolated from bugs in Colorado (Krinsky 2002).

We tested three pools of 14 bugs each for West Nile virus antigens. All pools were negative.