Family RHOPALOPSYLLIDAE

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Introduction

The Rhopalopsyllidae are a predominantly Neotropical family of 10 genera and 122 species (Lewis 1998) largely associated with burrowing rodents (Johnson 1957). The only Australian representative of the family is Parapsyllus with four species recorded from Australian seabirds. Smit (1965) recognised two groups: the cardinis group confined to the New Zealand subregion (P. cardinis) and the longicornis group with a circumpolar distribution (P. magellanicus, P. australiacus and P. taylori).

Two species are endemic: P. taylori is known only from the southern coastline of mainland Australia and Tasmania and is commonly found in the nests of burrowing shearwaters and storm petrels; P. australiacus is known only from coastal regions of southern Australia and Tasmania and commonly occurs in the nests of a variety of seabirds, especially burrowing petrels and penguins. The remaining two species occur on seabirds (cormorants, gulls, petrels, penguins, skuas) throughout the Southern Ocean (Dunnet 1964; Smit 1965) and were originally described from Macquarie Island and the Falkland Islands.

The family is characterised as head integricipit; ctenidia absent; lower half of frons with arrow-shaped, upward-pointing tubercle sunk in recess; metanotum without marginal spinelets; tergum VII with a single antesensilial seta on each side.

General References

Dunnet, G.M. 1964. Distribution and host relationships of fleas in the Antarctic and Subantarctic. Proc. 1st SCAR Symp. Antarctic Biol. 223-238 pp.

Johnson, P.T. 1957. A Classification of the Siphonaptera of South America. Memoirs of the Entomological Society of Washington 5: 1-298

Lewis, R.E. 1998. Résumé of the Siphonaptera (Insecta) of the World. Journal of Medical Entomology 35(4): 377-389 [Date published 31/July/1998]

Smit, F.G.A.M. 1965. Siphonaptera of New Zealand. Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Zoology 7: 1-50

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