New records of sucking lice (Phthiraptera: Anoplura) from the western United States

Despite the most recent synopsis of the North American sucking louse fauna by Kim et al. (1986), large gaps still exist in the documented geographic range for many of the species. It is important to document the geographical distributions of sucking lice because some species are known to be enzootic vectors of zoonotic pathogens and it is suspected that additional sucking lice are vectors of other pathogenic agents to wild mammals (Durden 2001). More collecting, emphasizing under-collected geographic regions and mammal species, should yield the discovery of new louse species and host associations (Kim et al. 1990). For example, one new species of sucking louse has recently been described from the western United States: Haemodipsus brachylagi Durden and Rausch from the pygmy rabbit, Brachylagus idahoensis in Nevada (Durden and Rausch 2007). Presented here are new collection records resulting mainly from flea survey fieldwork by one of us (JK), which significantly add to our knowledge of the geographic distribution of several species, plus two new host associations. Unattributed collections were made by JK; a few are attributed to other collectors. With two exceptions, host-louse relationships are as previously documented by Kim et al. (1986) and Durden and Musser (1994a,b) and are not considered further. However, a certain host species population may or may not be found to be parasitized by a louse species in a given geographical area. Voucher louse specimens are in the collections of JK or LAD. Host voucher accession numbers for the University of Utah Museum of Natural History, Salt Lake City (UMNH) vertebrate collection are provided where available.