MORPHOLOGY,SYSTEMATICS,EVOLUTION New Species of the Feather Mite Family Proctophyllodidae (Acariformes: Astigmata) From Two Species of Mockingbirds (Passeriformes: Mimidae) in Eastern North America SERGEY V. MIRONOV 1,2 AND BARRY M. OCONNOR 3 J. Med. Entomol. 51(3): 529Ð546 (2014); DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1603/ME13109 ABSTRACT Four new species of the feather mite family Proctophyllodidae are described from two species of the family Mimidae (Passeriformes): Proctophyllodes apanaskevichi sp. n. (Proctophyllo- dinae) and Amerodectes dumetellae sp. n. (Pterodectinae) from the Gray Catbird, Dumetella caroli- nensis (L., 1766), and Proctophyllodes gallowayi sp. n. (Proctophyllodinae) and Metapterodectes toxostomae sp. n. (Pterodectinae) from the Brown Thrasher, Toxostoma rufum (L., 1758). A. dumetellae and M. toxostomae represent the Þrst records of mites of the subfamily Pterodectinae on mockingbirds. KEY WORDS Acari, Proctophyllodidae, systematics, parasite, bird The feather mite family Proctophyllodidae Trouessart and Me´ gnin, 1884 (Acariformes: Analgoidea) is the most species-rich family of these group of astigmatan mites, currently including 400 species arranged in 44 genera and two subfamilies (Park and Atyeo 1971, Gaud and Atyeo 1996, Mironov 2009, Mironov and Gonza´ lez-Acun˜ a 2011, Mironov et al. 2012, Hernandes 2013). In the plumage of avian hosts, these mites are normally located on feathers with large and Þrm vanes, such as the ßight feathers and upper coverts of the wings (primaries, secondaries, and tertiaries) and tail feathers (retrices), where they are located in narrow channels between adjacent barbs on the ventral side of vanes (Dabert and Mironov 1999, Mironov 2009). Mites of both subfamilies, Proctophyllodinae and Pterodectinae, are widely distributed on Passeri- formes; the latter subfamily is also widely dispersed on hummingbirds (Apodiformes: Trochilidae), and only a few species are associated with particular host spe- cies from other nonpasserine orders, such as Char- adriiformes, Coraciiformes, Gruiformes, Piciformes, Psittaciformes, and Trogoniformes (Peterson 1975, Gaud and Atyeo 1982, 1996, Proctor 2003). Mites of the family Proctophyllodidae are typically the most common, abundant, and most easily detect- able group of feather mites associated with passerines. Nevertheless, because of their relatively high host speciÞcity (monoxeny or oligoxeny) and with a vast number of potential passerine hosts yet unexplored, a great number of these mites, as well as for other groups of feather mites, still remain undescribed. In the present article, we describe four new proc- tophyllodid mites from two species of mockingbirds, the Gray Catbird, Dumetella carolinensis (L., 1766), and the Brown Thrasher, Toxostoma rufum (L., 1758) (Passeriformes: Mimidae), widely distributed across North America. To date, two species of the genus Proctophyllodes Robin, 1877 (Proctophyllodinae), have been formally recorded on birds of the family Mimidae. Proctophyllodes caulifer Trouessart, 1899 was reported from Toxostoma redivivum (Gambel, 1845) in South America, and Proctophyllodes cribratus De Alzuet and Brandetti, 1987 was described from Mimus saturninus modulator (Gould, 1836) in Brazil (Trouessart 1899, De Alzuet and Brandetti 1987). However, as it was later discovered, the former host association was obviously false and was the result of accidental contamination (Atyeo and Braasch 1966), and thus the second mite species represents so far the single true record of proctophyllodids on mocking- birds. The Gray Catbird and the Brown Thrasher, examined in the current study, appeared to host two proctophyllodid species each: one mite species be- longed to the subfamily Proctophylodinae and the other belonged to the subfamily Pterodectinae. Materials and Methods The main part of the material used in the present work was collected by one of us (B. M. OConnor) during the period 1988 Ð2010 from dead bird speci- mens, most of which are deposited in the Museum of Zoology of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI); some additional samples were collected alive by Paul Super from birds being banded as part of the ATBI (All Taxon Biodiversity Inventory) at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and others were ob- 1 Department of Parasitology, Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya embankment 1, Saint Peters- burg 199034, Russia. 2 Corresponding author, e-mail: astigmata@zin.ru. 3 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, 1109 Geddes Ave., Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 Ð1079. 0022-2585/14/0529Ð0546$04.00/0  2014 Entomological Society of America Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jme/article/51/3/529/900621 by guest on 16 July 2022