Forficuloecus pezopori

Parasites are a major part of biodiversity, but they spend most of their time hidden in plain sight. Even with some animals that have been known to science for centuries, their parasite fauna remains completely unknown. This can either be due to the lack of research interest into their parasites, or the host animal is just really rare, so there has been very little to no opportunities to study the parasites that live on or in them. In some cases, those rare animals are at risk of going extinct, which means their parasites and symbionts may also disappear before we even know they exist. This post is a story about a ground parrot and its hidden louse.

Left: Forficuloecus pezopori louse viewed under light microscope, Right: a western ground parrot (Pezoporus flaviventris).
Both photos from graphical abstract of the paper

The parasite being featured in this post is Forficuloecus pezopori, and it is the first known parasite from the western ground parrot (Pezoporus flaviventris), also known as Kyloring. Kyloring is one of the rarest parrots in the world and is considered critically endangered, which is bad news for F. pezopori, because we have barely gotten to know this little insect, and it may already be at risk of disappearing along with its feathered host. Lice are particularly vulnerable to co-extinction as they are completely helpless off the host's body and are often specifically adapted to living on just one particular host species.

Forficuloecus pezopori was found on some captive ground parrots at Perth Zoo, the lice were hanging around the feathers at the back of the birds' head and nape. As far we know, the western ground parrot is the only host for this parasite. There is a slim chance that it might also be found on the western ground parrot's closest relative, the eastern ground parrot (Pezoporus wallicus), but we can't verify that at this point, because we know so little about the parasites of ground parrots in Australia.

For example, a subspecies of eastern ground parrot in Tasmania was found to support a type of feather mite called Dubininia pezopori but it is uncertain whether that mite is unique to just that particular subspecies, or if it is also found on the mainland eastern ground parrots, since nothing is actually known about the parasites and symbionts of those birds. Given the eastern and western ground parrot have been separated since the Pleistocene about 2 million years ago, there would have been enough separation in time and space for the two species to develop their own distinct collection of parasites. So as far as we can tell, the Kyloring is the only host for F. pezopori.

Parasites on endangered hosts such as the Kyloring are in a precarious position, because not only are they at risk of dying out alongside their hosts, historically, there have been cases of parasites being wiped out in the process of people trying to conserve their hosts. For example, during the California condor breeding program, a unique species of condor louse was wiped out due to the pesticide-based delousing that the birds received when they were taken into captivity. And the California condor louse is not the only victim of extinction via conservation efforts. The Iberian lynx louse also suffered the same fate. 

Even more tragic is the case of Rallicola extinctus - a louse of the Huia, which was a species of New Zealand bird that became extinct early in the 20th century, with its last confirmed sighting in 1907. But the louse that it hosted was not even formally described until 1990 - many decades after the host had already gone extinct, hence the species name R. extinctus. Forficuloecus pezopori and many other lice species are at risk of such entangled fates, or become victims of well-meaning conservation efforts.

While a lot of people may not mourn the loss of parasites, it might be their hosts that end up missing them the most. The presence of parasites may help them develop a properly functioning immune system, and their absence could leave the host with a range of physiological disorders. And these parasites might be better off together with their hosts as they can tell us a lot about how the host animals live, and the ecosystem they exist in.

To rectify the mistakes of the past, the researchers suggested that any future studies on wild populations of ground parrots should incorporate a routine louse check to see how common F. pezopori are among those birds, but not to remove any of the lice that are found, and just let those little insects be. Especially since they don't seem to harm healthy, wild parrots. At the same time, lice infection on captive birds can serve as an opportunity to learn more about F. pezopori - saving the host along with its parasites at the same time

Living organisms are intertwined within a network of ecological interactions, if you pull on one loose thread you might trigger a series of co-extinctions and unravel the entire tapestry. Because of those connections, we could be losing more species than we realise.  Though they are often hidden out of sight, and thus out of minds, losing parasites and symbionts would leave us with emptier ecosystems and a lesser world.

Reference:

Martin, S. B., Keatley, S., Wallace, A., Vaughan-Higgins, R. J., & Ash, A. (2024). A critically co-endangered feather louse Forficuloecus pezopori n. sp.(Phthiraptera: Philopteridae) detected through conservation intervention for the western ground parrot Pezoporus flaviventris (Psittaculidae). International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife 24: 100931.

Guimaraesiella sp.

Quite a few years ago I wrote a blog post about a study on some bird lice that hitch-hike on louse flies as a way of reaching new hosts - this type of interaction whereby an organism attach itself to the body of another as a way of getting around is called "phoresy". And while it is a fascinating interaction with important ecological implications, this phenomenon is not particularly well-studied. Well, the paper that is being featured in this blog post revisited that field of research, and used multiple approaches to investigate this type of interaction. And the researchers behind it did so by combining literature review, traditional parasitology, DNA barcoding, and citizen science.

Left: Guimaraesiella lice found on from louse flies. Right: Louse fly with lice attached (indicated by red arrows). 
From Figure 3 of the paper.

The researchers of this study were trying to figure out how common phoresy is among bird lice, and who exactly is hitch-hiking on what. They conducted a review of the existing scientific literature on phoretic relationships between lice and louse flies, and found that many of the older records were unusable because they lack sufficient details regarding species identity of the lice involved. Furthermore, while phoretic behaviour in lice is most well-documented in North America and Europe, there are other parts of the world with much richer avian fauna (and thus more bird lice species), but phoretic behaviour of bird lice in those regions are not as well-studied.

To address this, the researchers came up with a way of collecting lice and louse flies from a large number of birds, and did so with some help from members of the public. As a part of long-term project to monitor bird mortality from vehicle and building collisions, ordinary citizens in Singapore were encouraged to report any dead birds that they come across. Through this, the researchers were able to track down and collect over a hundred recently deceased birds for this study. They then screened the dead birds for lice and louse flies, which were identified based on their morphology and their DNA.

In total, they screened 131 birds composed of 54 different species, and collected 603 lice and 32 louse flies. Of those, 22 birds had louse flies on them, but only three of the louse flies also happened to be carrying hitch-hiking lice, which were identified as belonging to the genus Guimaraesiella. Amidst all that, they found something unexpected - one of the birds, a Blue-winged pitta (Pitta moluccensis) was infected with louse flies carrying Guimaraesiella lice. This is the first time that Guimaraesiella lice has been found on pittas, as those birds are usually infected with lice in the Picicola genus.

It is likely that riding on louse flies is how Guimaraesiella ended up on the pitta. Indeed, lice in that genus appear to live on a wider range of birds compared with most bird lice, which are often confined to a single or handful of closely related host species, and its hitch-hiking habit may be the key to their success. While bird lice are very adept at climbing around and between their host's feathers, they are completely helpless off the host's body. This doesn't give them much opportunity to branch out and onto other bird species as they can only climb onto a new host through direct contact.

But since louse flies feed on a variety of different bird hosts, travelling on one of those flying blood-suckers can open up a whole new world of possibilities for lice that engage in phoresy. The species of Guimaraesiella lice they found on the pitta has also been found on at least 24 other species of birds, possibly more. Considering that the louse fly that Guimaraesiella rides on - Ornithophila metallica - feeds from over a hundred different bird genera, perhaps it is surprising that Guimaraesiella hasn't been found from even more bird species. So while the louse fly presents its hitch-hiker lice with many different species of birds, those well-travelled lice still stay fairly selective when it comes to where they settle on. These lice are like Goldilocks when it comes to picking a new feathery home - it needs to be just the right fit.

The approach taken by the researchers in this study to recover and screen large numbers of birds for louse flies and lice can also be applied to other parts of the world. This would help us obtain a more complete understanding of how widespread hitch-hiking lice actually are, and the role this behaviour has played in the evolution of these ectoparasitic insects.

Reference:
Lee, L., Tan, D. J., Oboňa, J., Gustafsson, D. R., Ang, Y., & Meier, R. (2022). Hitchhiking into the future on a fly: Toward a better understanding of phoresy and avian louse evolution (Phthiraptera) by screening bird carcasses for phoretic lice on hippoboscid flies (Diptera). Systematic Entomology 47: 420-429.

Echinophthirius horridus

Lice are common parasites of mammals. Humans alone are host to three different species of lice, and it's not just humans or land mammals that can get infected with lice. Pinnipeds - seals and sea lions - also have to contend with being covered in those ectoparasites. Unlike many other ectoparasites in the sea which have been bestowed with the name of "lice" such as salmon lice, tongue-biter lice, or whale lice (all of which are crustaceans), seal lice are true lice, in that they are parasitic insects belonging to the order called Phthiraptera.

Left: An adult seal louse, Right: two opened seal lice eggs (nits) glued to a strand of seal fur hair
From Fig. 1 of the paper

When the ancestors of modern pinnipeds took to the sea some time in the Oligocene about 30 million years ago, the lice followed them into the water, and in the process, they have to deal with all the challenges associated with living on an aquatic host. Seal lice belong to a family of lice called the Echinophthiridae and they have some specialised adaptations for living on hosts that spend most of their time immersed in sea water. This include elongated spiracles (the opening insects use to breathe) with mechanism for closing, a dense covering of spines and scales, and stout clamp-like claws that allow them to grip tightly onto their hosts' fur.

Blood-sucking arthropods such as ticks, fleas, and lice are often responsible for transmitting a wide variety of parasites and pathogens. And it seems that seal lice can also play a similar role in the sea. While performing routine diagnostics on 54 harbour seals and a very heavily-infected grey seal pup that were hospitalised at the Sealcentre Piteterburn (a seal rehabilitation and research centre in Netherlands), a group of scientists were able to use that opportunity to collect a massive number of seal lice from those marine mammals. They ended up collecting 200 lice from the harbour seals, and another 1000 from that one very heavily infested seal pup.

Those researchers divided the lice into batches of 1-20 lice, based on the individual host that they came from (the lice from the heavily infected seal pups were divided into multiple batches of 15 lice), then grind them up, and examined the lice slurry by subjecting it to polymerase chain reactions that amplified the DNA of known seal parasites and pathogens.

The DNA analyses showed that the seal heartworm (Acanthocheilonema spirocauda) was the most commonly found parasite, with it being detected in about one-third of the lice samples. While most people would associate "heartworm" with the dog heartworm (Dirofilaria immitis), that species is just one out of many different filarial roundworms that live in the heart of mammals. The findings of this study corroborates with previously published research which have found heartworm larvae dwelling in the gut of seal lice, demonstrating that these ectoparasitic insects play a key role in the transmission and life cycle of these nematodes.

Alongside the heartworm, there were also some bacterial pathogens lurking in those lice. Some of the lice from the grey seal pup were also carrying Anaplasma phagocytophilum, the bacteria which causes tick-borne fever and as their name indicates, are usually carried by ticks. Additionally, a few of the lice from that seal pup and some of the harbour seals were also carrying a species of Mycoplasma bacteria. This microbe is commonly found in seals and other marine mammals, but when it gets transmitted to humans, it is also associated with a disease known as "seal fingers". However, unlike the heartworm, it is unclear if the lice actually play a role in the transmission of these bacterial pathogens, or if they were incidental infections that simply came with living on a seal host.

It is worth noting that while pinnipeds had retained an heirloom of their terrestrial ancestry in the form of lice, another group of marine mammals - the whales - have acquired their own unique suite of ectoparasites which are unlike that of any other mammals. They have "whale lice" which are actually crustaceans in the same group as sandhoppers, along with pennellid copepods - a family of parasitic copepods that usually infect fish, with the exception of one species which has evolved to parasitise whales.

So why are there no "true lice" on whales? Well, for all their adeptness at clinging to their host, lice ultimately depend on the presence of hair or similar structures to hang onto their host. When a seal dives underwater, the layer of fur forms a covering that the lice can shelter underneath. But no such shelter exists on the smooth, hair-free surface of a whale. As a result, while whales have escaped the lice (and have picked up other parasites in the process), pinnipeds have kept their fur, and along with it, their lice and the worms that they carry.

Reference:

Hirzmann, J., Ebmer, D., Sánchez-Contreras, G. J., Rubio-García, A., Magdowski, G., Gärtner, U., Taubert, A & Hermosilla, C. (2021). The seal louse (Echinophthirius horridus) in the Dutch Wadden Sea: investigation of vector-borne pathogens. Parasites & Vectors 14: 96.

Ceratophyllus (Emmareus) fionnus

When it comes to conservation and protecting threatened species, fleas would not usually be high on most people's list. Not only because most people are not fans of parasites, but also insects and just invertebrates in general gets little attention compared with charismatic megafauna, which attracts far more conservation resources. Additionally, there are comparatively less scientific research being conducted on invertebrates compared with vertebrate animals. So less is known about them, despite 99% of all animal life on Earth being invertebrates, and at least one fifth of them are under threat from extinction.

Adult Ceratophyllus (Emmareus) fionnus [insert: a Manx shearwater in flight]
Photos from Fig. 1 and 2 of the paper

Which brings us to the topic of the paper we are discussing in this post - a flea. But we're not just talking about any flea, we're talking about Ceratophyllus (Emmareus) fionnus which parasitises the Manx Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus). Like many other birds the Manx Shearwater is host to a wide range of parasites, both external and internal, but what makes C. (E.) fionnus special is that even though the Manx shearwater has a wide distribution across both the north and southern Atlantic ocean, this little flea seems to be found exclusively on an island off the coast of Scotland called the Isle of Rùm - and nowhere else. This alone earns it the distinction of being one of the few species of endemic Scottish insects.

The life cycle of fleas involves a non-parasitic larval stage that feeds on organic detritus in the surrounding environment. Only when the worm-shape larva pupates and emerges as an adult does it begin its vampiric life style. The Manx shearwater spend most of its life out at sea and only visits the Isle of Rùm to breed, and based on the life cycle of other seabird fleas, C (E.) fionnus would breed in the nest and bedding. So when their hosts leave, the fleas stay and overwinter as pupal cocoons near the nests, and when spring comes, the blood-hungry adults emerge, eagerly awaiting the return of their hosts. While this arrangement seems to have worked well for C. (E) fionus, being restricted to a single island also makes it rather vulnerable to becoming extinct due to environmental changes.

There have been other cases of bird ectoparasites which have gone extinct in the relatively recent past due to various different reasons. The Huia louse, which only lived on the New Zealand bird Huia, is thought to have become extinct along with its host in early 20th century. And then there was the Californian condor louse - a species which was ironically (and unnecessarily) rendered extinct in an effort to conserve another (its host) during the Californian condor breeding program.

Those are just the cases that are better known - it can be safely assumed that throughout recent history, the extinction of many bird species around the world have been accompanied by an unnoticed wave of parasite co-extinctions. So how would one go about coming up a plan for conserving a species of flea? In a recently published paper, a group of researchers outlined a potential roadmap for protecting C. (E.) fionnus.

Like most invertebrates, there isn't much information on some of the most basic aspects of C. (E.) fionnus' biology, including their distribution and population level, so to start out with, we need to learn more about this flea species. But the usual methods for sampling and identifying insects and parasites will not be suitable since they often result in the death of the animal in question. So the researchers suggested that surveys of C. (E.) fionnus should use non-lethal methods for immobilising the fleas such chilling or carbon dioxide so that they can be identified using a field microscope.

While the Manx shearwater colony has been fairly stable on the Isle of Rùm, in more recent times their nest have come attack from introduced brown rats - and obviously if the shearwater colony disappear from the island, so will C. (E.) fionnus. So what can be done to safeguard a viable population of a flea species? Unlike other threatened animal species, captive breeding is not really an option for C. (E.) fionnus - raising a parasite species in captivity implicitly involves keeping its hosts in captivity and when the host in question is a migratory seabird, that's out of the question.

So the researchers suggested creating "insurance" populations of C. (E.) fionnus on some of the other Manx shearwater colonies within the British Isles. They nominated six potential sites to translocate founding populations. Translocation is a common strategy for conservation of vulnerable or endangered species. But this hasn't really been done before for parasites, so any such effort would require ongoing monitoring of both the host and parasite population to see if the translocation has been successful, or what effects this might have on the host population.

Aside from conserving parasites simply out of principle, there is also a more host-centric reason for protecting them. Exposure to parasites during early stages of the shearwater's life might be a vital step for them to develop a fully functioning immune system. So those fleas waiting in the nests could be giving the shearwater chicks a needed boost to their immune system early in life that allows them to survive into adulthood.

As mentioned above, there are other parasites that have already been driven to extinction right under our noses. The paper discussed in this post is one of the first to develop a conservation plan for a specific parasite species. Every single species of parasites are unique in their host preferences, life cycles, and distribution, so there won't be a one-size-fits-all plan that can possibly be applicable to all parasitic organisms. Especially when one considers the term "parasite" encompasses countless different phyla of animals, fungi, plants, and single-celled organisms.

Parasites are an integral part of biodiversity, and many of them are facing extinction in the foreseeable future. They deserve to be the target of conservation efforts just as much any other species. If our goal is to protect and conserve "wildlife", we shouldn't forget about the numerous wildlife which are small and hidden from plain sight.

Reference:
Kwak, M. L., Heath, A. C., & Palma, R. L. (2019). Saving the Manx Shearwater Flea Ceratophyllus (Emmareus) fionnus (Insecta: Siphonaptera): The Road to Developing a Recovery Plan for a Threatened Ectoparasite. Acta Parasitologica 64: 903-910.

Antarctophthirus microchir

Lice are common parasites on birds and mammals. They belong to the order Phthiraptera, and this entire order of insects have dedicated themselves to living in the dense forest of feathers and fur on those warm-blooded animals. Aside from a few species of pelagic sea skaters, lice that live on pinnipeds (the group of mammals which includes sea lions, seals, and walruses) and sea birds can be considered as the only group of insects to have successfully made a living out in the open ocean.

Antarctophthirus microchir stages: (a) egg, (b) second-stage larva, (c) adult male, (d) adult female.
Photos from Fig. 4 of the paper

Living on a pinniped poses certain challenges which are unique to that particular environment. Any external parasites of such animals would have to withstand being frequently immersed in saltwater, and not get washed away when these marine mammals propel themselves through the sea. Lice found on birds and land mammals are commonly studied because they are fairly accessible. Studying sea lion lice such as Antarctophthirus microchir and their suite of unique adaptations is another matter.

Just collecting them in the first place is a challenge in itself. How does one collect lice from seals or sea lions? They are large, wild animals, and they spend a lot of their time at sea. Previously, pinniped lice can only be obtained from dead hosts - which is not ideal for a variety of reasons. But a team of researchers have come up with an ingenious but very simple solution - a lice comb, admittedly somewhat a modified one.

In the Chilean city of Valdivia, there is a small "urban" colony of sea lions. Those are a group of sea lions that hang out around the fish markets and piers of the Calle-Calle River and they are used to the presence of people. These sea lions present a valuable opportunity for researchers to study them in more details, including their ectoparasites. To collect lice from those marine mammals, the researchers made a "telescopic lice comb apparatus" - which is basically a lice comb taped to the end of a telescopic metal rod. They selected five individuals on the basis of their skin condition and temperament to try out their new device.

The "telescopic lice comb" being deployed and a close-up of the end of the comb. From Fig.1 and 2 of the paper

They carefully approached the sea lions with their telescopic lice comb and begin combing them for lice. All this took place under the sea lion's terms - when approaching the sea lions, the researchers maintain eye contact and avoid sudden movements, and the sea lions were allowed to inspect the telescopic lice comb before the researchers start applying it to their skin.

Each sea lions were combed for 15-45 mins, starting at their head, then moving further down the body. The researchers never tried to coax the sea lions with food, and they were free to leave if they ever felt uncomfortable about the whole process. And based on how the sea lion reacted to the experience of being combed, they seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed the process, in some cases changing position so that the researchers can scratch their itchier spots.

While the "telescopic lice comb apparatus" seems to have won the sea lions' approval, how well did it work for its original purpose of collecting parasites? Well, the researchers were able to successfully collect live lice from four of the five sea lions they combed, and every life stages of the sea lion louse were present in those samples - eggs, juveniles, and adults - the lot. So they were able to obtain the entire life cycle. And in the process, they were also able to pick up some samples from the sea lions themselves including hair and dandruff.

This opens up all manner of research possibilities into the life and adaptation of these otherwise difficult to access lice. These urban sea lions may have provide science with an opportunity to study an enigmatic parasitic insect, and all that was needed to make the most of it was a modified lice comb.

Reference:
Ebmer, D., Navarrete, M. J., Muñoz, P., Flores, L. M., Gärtner, U., Taubert, A., & Hermosilla, C. (2019). Antarctophthirus microchir infestation in synanthropic South American sea lion (Otaria flavescens) males diagnosed by a novel non-invasive method. Parasitology Research 118: 1353-1361

Petromyzon marinus (revisited)

Today we're featuring a guest post by Darragh Casey - a student from 4th year class of the Applied Freshwater and Marine Biology' degree programme at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology in Ireland. This class is being taught by lecturer Dr. Katie O’Dwyer and this post was written as an assignment about writing a blog post about a parasite, and has been selected to appear as a guest post for the blog. Some of you might remember Dr. O'Dwyer from previous guest post on ladybird STI and salp-riding crustaceans. I'll let Darragh take it from here.

What makes huge sharks jump skywards? Perhaps, the answer to this question is the ancient sea lamprey, Petromyzon marinus.

Image from Figure 1 of this paper

No one is quite sure about what makes the basking sharks of our oceans breach and leap like their predacious cousin, the great white shark. Many theorise this phenomenon is the shark’s action to rid itself of various menacing parasites from their bodies. It could be the case that the annoyingly adapted sea lamprey is proving one rowdy passenger too many, hence, pushing these sharks over the edge, or, in this case, the waterline.

Sea lampreys are one of the most noticeable and common ectoparasites observed on the second largest fish in the sea, the basking sharks. Interestingly, it’s not until the lampreys become adults that they begin to bother larger fish in the ocean, in fact, they don’t even enter the ocean until they’re adults.

Prior to becoming fully metamorphosed they will have spent the last 3 – 5 years of their lives burrowed in the sediment of rivers, filter feeding on organic matter in the water column, and then they transform to become parasitic wanderers. Once they find a suitable host they use their oval shaped sucking mouth and many small teeth to grasp on and feed on the tissues and blood of an unsuspecting donor.

When the victim is the basking shark, the lamprey show their unique abilities to full power. First off, they have to penetrate the hard dermal denticle armour of sharks, which is no mean feat! The next problem they face is the high urea levels in the tissues and the blood of basking sharks. To cope with this potentially toxic level of urea in their host’s blood, the lamprey has a fantastic capability to dispel the urea whilst feeding, using this ability for their survival as described by Wilkie and colleagues. The lamprey also use lamphredin, a chemical in their saliva with anti-clotting properties, to prevent wounds from healing while feeding.

A pair of sea lamprey feeding on a basking shark, from Fig. 1 of this paper

The resulting damage from sea lamprey, especially in great numbers, can be very negative on the basking shark. They deprive the sharks of some of their urea, which is vital for osmoregulation to keep constant pressure in their bodily fluids, and they leave the sharks with open wounds which can become infected, and who knows what could happen then? However, it is more likely, that the sharks, only experience minor lamprey-related health deficiencies.

After a few years, the lampreys will eventually jump ship from their aggravated marine host and return to riverine habitats to find a suitable ally to mate with, spawn, and die soon after. In doing so, they set the foundations for a new generation of lampreys to hassle the basking sharks of the oceans for many years to come.

Are the sea lamprey such a nuisance to these sharks that they decide to momentarily leave the water in an attempt to shake them off? It’s hard to know for certain but one thing is for sure, if blood draining parasitic fish were to latch on to me I would be trying to leave the ocean pretty fast too.

References:
Johnston, EM., Halsey, LG., Payne, NL., Kock, AA., Iosilevskii, G., Whelan, B. and Houghton, JDR. (2018). 'Latent power of basking sharks revealed by exceptional breaching events’. Biology Letters. 14: 20180537

Wilkie, M., Turnbull, S., Bird, J., Wang, Y., Claude, J. and Youson, J. (2004). ‘Lamprey parasitism of sharks and teleosts: high capacity urea excretion in an extant vertebrate relic’. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Molecular & Integrative Physiology. 138: 485-492.

This post was written by Darragh Casey.

Epipomponia nawai

Usually on this blog, caterpillars are featured as reluctant hosts for a variety of different parasites, ranging from parasitoid wasps to insect-killing nematodes. But in today's post, it is a caterpillar that gets to star as the parasite. Meet Epipomponia nawai, a caterpillar that is found across parts of eastern Asia from China, to Korea, and Japan. Unlike most other caterpillars that munch on leaves, the caterpillars of E. nawai cling to and gnaw on the flanks of cicadas with their sharp, slender mouthparts.

Top: early instar E. nawai larvae, Bottom: late instar E. nawai larvae
Photos from the Supplementary Material of the paper

Epipomponia nawai belongs to a very unusual family of moths called Epipyropidae - they are also known as planthopper parasite moths because they have caterpillars that live as ectoparasites of planthoppers. Epipomponia nawai is even more exceptional in that instead of parasitising little planthoppers, its caterpillars take on big chunky cicadas as hosts.

In a recent study, a group Chinese scientists conducted a field survey looking for E. nawai at Tangyu Valley, in the Shaanxi Province during the summer months of 2013 to 2016. They recorded any E. nawai that they came across, and brought some those parasitic caterpillars (along with their cicada hosts) back to their laboratory to record their development and behaviour.

The caterpillar of E. nawai looks like a fairly-ordinary reddish orange grub, but when it reaches its final instar (the stage just before turning into a pupa) it becomes covered in a fluffy white coat of wax, giving it an appearance not unlike the woolly bug from The Ancient Magus' Bride. The thoracic legs of E. nawai are fairly short and stumpy, but each ends in a sharp curved hook, and the fleshy, sucker-like prolegs on its abdomen are also lined with a series of microscopic, velcro-like hooks. This allows E. nawai to not only cling firmly to its host, but also to scurry across the cicada's body if the need arises.

Once it is ready to pupate, the caterpillar safely detach from their host by abseiling down on a strand of silk, extruded from the spinneret beneath its mouth. It then climb to the nearest tree branch to make a fluffy cocoon. The adult moths emerge in early August over the course of about two weeks. In contrast to the distinctive-looking caterpillar, adult E. nawai is a fairly ordinary-looking moth. The adult only lives for a few days and do not have a functional mouthpart; its sole raison d'être is reproduction. So in another words - it has no mouth and it must mate.

After mating, a female E. nawai can lay up to 200 eggs over her short life, but some female moths forgo mating altogether and are capable of produce viable eggs asexually - which is very unusual among moths and butterflies. Unlike parasitoid wasps and flies that lay their eggs directly onto or into their hosts, E. nawai moths deposit their eggs on tree bark. So the newly hatched caterpillars have to somehow find their own way onto a suitable cicada and it is not currently clear how they manage to do so. While it seems the raucous call of male cicadas would be the most obvious signal for E. nawai caterpillars to home in on (this is how a species of parasitoid fly track down its cicada prey), only male cicadas call, but E.nawai infects both male and female cicadas equally, so they must be tracking down their hosts through some other means.

While there are some other lepidopterans such as the blue butterfly and the cuckoo moth which have caterpillars that live in ant nests as "brood parasites", the kind of ectoparasitic life style led by E. nawai and other epipyropid moths is unique among lepidopterans. Although it is the odd one out among moths and butterflies, E. nawai and its fellow epipyropids join the ranks of an estimated 223 animal lineages that have independently evolved along the path of parasitism - and have never looked back.

Reference:
Liu, Y., Yang, Z., Zhang, G., Yu, Q., & Wei, C. (2018). Cicada parasitic moths from China (Lepidoptera: Epipyropidae): morphology, identity, biology, and biogeography. Systematics and Biodiversity 16: 417-427.

Batracobdella algira

Leeches and amphibians frequently interact with each other in nature, usually with the amphibian serving as food for the leeches, whether as eggs, tadpoles, or adults. Of course, the thing that most people know about leeches is their appetite for blood, and those that parasitise amphibians are no different. Most amphibians usually survive their blood-letting encounter with leeches (with some exceptions), but some leech can transmit blood-borne parasites and may be an additional source of stress for their hosts during unstable environmental conditions. While there have been some studies on interactions between leeches and amphibians, most of them have been on those found in freshwater environments, and less is known about the terrestrial species.

Photo collage of Batracbdella leeches on salamanders from Fig 2 of this paper and Fig 1 of this paper

Batracobdella is a genus of leech that is usually associated with amphibians, as denoted by their scientific name which basically translates into "frog leech". The study that I am discussing in this post focused on Batracobdella algira, a species of green leech found in Europe which has been found to feed on a wide range of different amphibians. Among its list of hosts are European cave salamanders.

These cave salamanders are confined to southeastern France and Italy, and are unique among salamanders in that they lack lungs and breath entirely through their skin. Batracobdella algira is the only known ectoparasite of those secretive amphibians, and while there have been some records of leeches on these salamanders, next to nothing is known about their ecology or the impact they might be having on their hosts.

A group of researchers carried out a study of these salamanders and their leeches at various caves in Sardinia, Italy. They looked through 26 different caves and found that while some caves were leech hotspots where thirty percent of the salamanders were infected with at least a leech or two, there were other caves where leeches were scarce, and only one in a hundred salamanders had a leech. The caves that were home to lots of leeches also tend to have water with higher dissolved mineral content. While there's nothing about the mineralised water themselves that are attracting leeches, such hard water means there is active water flow through the cave network and the researchers suggested that might be how leeches are infiltrating and distribute themselves throughout the caves.

They researchers found that bigger salamanders tend to get more leeches, possibly because they present a bigger and juicier target. They also noticed that whereas adult leeches tend to be found by themselves on the host, smaller leeches tend to be found in groups which might be a brood that have dropped off by an adult leech. Some leeches can be great parents, and are known to provide parental care for their brood. So those clumps of baby leeches might have been placed there by their mother to give them the best possible start in life.

For all that blood-letting, the salamanders didn't seem to be fazed by the leeches and were in fairly good health. When the researchers compared the body condition of the leech-infected salamander with the leech-free ones, they didn't find any significant difference between them, though admittedly, that is a single, very simplified measure of their condition

Infected salamanders might be doing something to compensate for being fed on by those leeches. Indeed, the researchers found that infected salamanders were more likely to be found at the cave entrance, and it is possible that was because those salamander have to spend more time looking for food. Also, it is not known if the leeches transmit blood-borne parasites (as other amphibian-feeding leeches have been recorded to) or if they alter host immunological response in some way.

With amphibian populations declining all over the world due to climate change, habitat loss, pollutants, over-exploitation, and the deadly amphibian chytrid fungus, it is more important than ever to learn more about the parasites and symbionts that live on/in amphibians, and the effects that they have on their hosts.

References:
Lunghi, E., Ficetola, G. F., Mulargia, M., Cogoni, R., Veith, M., Corti, C., & Manenti, R. (2018). Batracobdella leeches, environmental features and Hydromantes salamanders. International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife. 7: 48-53.

P.S. Speaking of leeches, earlier this year, I illustrated my own tribute to the medicinal leech in the form of  another Parasite Monster Girl - meet Dr Delilah the Leech Monster Girl Doctor.

Arthrorhynchus nycteribiae

Bat flies are ectoparasites that cling to bats and suck their blood. As their name indicates, they are actually flies, but their bodies have been so heavily modified for their parasitic life style that they are barely recognisable as such. Many of them look like spiders with their long crawling legs which allow them to climb all over a bat's furry coat, and some species have even lost their wings. They can be very picky about what species of bat they parasitise, and most bat flies are specialists that are only found on one or two bat species. While they are a pest to bats, these bat flies also have their own ectoparasites to deal with, in the form of a group of fungi, and this post is on a study which examined some of them.

Bat fly Penicillidia conspicua with Arthrorhynchus nycteribiae attached
from Fig. 3. of the paper

These fungi belong to a group call Laboulbeniales, and are more commonly known as the "labouls". The live on the cuticle of their hosts and are not as invasive as other insect-infecting fungi. Labouls are found on a variety of different terrestrial arthropods including mites, millipedes and insects, but most species of labouls are found on beetles - which is to be expected somewhat since most species of terrestrial arthropods are beetles.

Labouls that infect bat flies have been found all over the world, but they in the environment where they do occur, they are relatively rare. In one study, scientists screened over 2500 bat flies and found only 56 laboul-infected flies. In Europe, there are four species of labouls that live on bat flies, all of them belong to the genus Arthrorhynchus. The fungi described in this study came from bat flies which lived on bats in the mountainous region of Hungary and parts of Romania. The samples were collected as a part of a long term bat surveys which took place between 1998 to 2015.

During the course of the survey, researchers caught bats with mist nets which were placed close to roosting sites. The bats that they caught were inspected for bat flies, and then released right after the researchers finished picking off their bat flies. They end up screening 1594 bats and collected a total of 1494 bat flies. Most of the bat flies the researchers collected were free from labouls, and of the eleven bat fly species they came across, only three were hosting labouls from two species - Arthrorhynchus eucampsipodae and Arthrorhynchus nycteribiae. The most commonly infected bat fly was the spider-look-alike bat fly Penicillidia conspicua - about a quarter of all the P. conspicua they found were infected with A. nycteribiae, and they seem to be the preferred host for that fungus.

Regardless of host fly species, the laboul fungi have an overwhelming preference for infecting female flies. This might be due to female flies simply being better hosts for the fungi - they live for longer than male flies (which gives them more opportunity to pick up laboul infections), they grow bigger, and have higher fat reserves (especially during pregnancy - yes, bat flies get pregnant), all of which makes them better hosts for the labouls than male bat flies.

There is still much that we do not known about these ectoparasites of ectoparasites - do all the bat fly labouls have a single common ancestor that initially jumped onto bat flies from some other insect host, then diversified into different species? Or did the different laboul species independently colonised bat flies on their own? Given mixed species roosts are pretty common among bats, how does this affect the transmission and evolution of these fungi on the bat flies? Additional do the labouls affect the interactions between the bat flies and their hosts?

Parasites can themselves become parasitised. Even on the backs of flies that live on the backs of bats, there is an undiscovered world of biological diversity - and we have barely scratched its surface.

Reference:
Haelewaters, D. et al. (2017). Parasites of parasites of bats: Laboulbeniales (Fungi: Ascomycota) on bat flies (Diptera: Nycteribiidae) in central Europe. Parasites & Vectors 10(1): 96.

Trichodectes pinguis

Today we're featuring a guest post by Aidan McCarthy - a student from 4th year class of the Applied Freshwater and Marine Biology' degree programme at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology in Ireland. This class is being taught by lecturer Dr. Katie O’Dwyer and this post was written as an assignment about writing a blog post about a parasite, and has been selected to appear as a guest post for the blog. Some of you might remember Dr. O'Dwyer from previous guest post on ladybird STI and salp-riding crustaceans. I'll let Aidan take it from here

The words parasite and lice regularly go hand in hand, and usually brings us dreaded flashbacks to those primary school days when our parents would rigorously comb and shampoo our hair trying to rid of us those nasty headlice! Well unfortunately for Scandinavian brown bears, lice may impose a bigger problem than just an itchy head as a team of Swedish scientists found out in their recent study.

Trichodectes pinguis specimen from Fig. 4 of the paper

Trichodectes spp. hit the limelight when these “pests” were discovered in our beloved pets, often resulting in scratching, sleeplessness and nervousness in man’s best friend. This lead to the cull of Trichodectes canis from dogs in the western world through veterinary practices.

However, Trichodectes don’t just occur on dogs, with previous studies discovering 16 species within this genus (no doubt there are hundreds more waiting to be discovered!) parasitising ungulates and carnivores worldwide. Trichodectes pinguis are chewing lice or biting lice of brown bears, although this name suggests they bite and chew their host, they actually feed on their dead skin and other skin products.The side effects caused by this feeding can be major irritants to brown bears as you’ll see later. These are permanent ectoparasites that stay their entire lifecycle on their host, and are highly specific to brown bears. They get transmitted between bears through direct physical contact during mating, fights, and mother-offspring contact.

Patches of hair loss in the neck and upper chest region of the infected bear
From Fig. 1 of the paper

In the April of 2014, a 5-year-old female brown bear was captured by scientists in south-central Sweden under the Scandinavian Brown Bear Research Project and after extensive examination, patches of baldness were discovered on its neck and upper part of its chest. This was caused by, you guessed it, those foraging little critters. Similar but more extreme cases were observed in two male bears the following year who had extensive patches of “bearness” throughout their bodies. Moderate to high numbers of these tiny lice were found in the hair surrounding the affected areas.

The affected areas showed signs or hyperpigmentation, lichenification, and in some cases chronic dermatitis indicating inflammation, pruritus and severe scratching, so pretty nasty hey! We all know the feeling of having an itch that just won’t go away, now imagine that on most of your body. Interestingly, hair samples collected from nearby brown bear day beds (hidden resting places) were found to contain lice too.

Left: Capture male brown bear parasitised by lice with patches of hair loss, Right: the same bear capture on camera feeding
From Fig. 2 of the paper

Mammals often carry considerable numbers of ectoparasites without any major effects to their health, yet more intense infestations as observed on those brown bears can have detrimental effects to the host. These severe louse infestations can make bears more susceptible to secondary infections and negatively alter their behaviour with restlessness, scratching, reduced feeding times and high levels of stress being just some examples.

Finally, if those weren’t bad enough, excessive hair loss may affect thermoregulation of the animal especially during times of high energy expenditure such as reproduction and hibernation. It would be pretty chilly going to sleep on a cold winters night without your warm woolly duvet alright! So I think it’s safe to say we didn’t have it too bad with those pesky headlice when you think about what the poor Scandinavian brown bears have to deal with!

Reference:
Esteruelas, N. F., Malmsten, J., Bröjer, C., Grandi, G., Lindström, A., Brown, P. Swenson, Jon E., Evans, Alina L. Arnemo, Jon M. (2016). Chewing lice Trichodectes pinguis pinguis in Scandinavian brown bears (Ursus arctos). International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife 5: 134-138.

This post was written by Aidan McCarthy

Pseudolynchia canariensis (revisited)

Ever since birds and mammals have evolved to have feathers and fur respectively, many different orders of insects have also evolved to take advantage of the opportunities that they provide. Fleas, lice and some families of flies have become ectoparasites that dwell in the cosy environments offered by animals covered in feathers or fur.

Top: P. canarienesis with hitch-hiking lice
Bottom: Pigeon lice; (A) Columbicola columbae,
(B) Campanulotes compar, (C) Hohorstiella lata,
and (D) Menacanthus stramineus. Image from the paper

While there are many biting flies that feed on the blood of feather- and fur-covered animals, few are as specialised as the hippoboscid flies - also known as Louse Flies. Louse flies are flies that have evolved to be obligate ectoparasite - some of them can fly, but they prefer spending most of their time crawling around the feathers of birds or the fur of mammals. The species featured in the study we are covering today is Pseudolynchia canariensis, which parasitises the common rock pigeon (Columba livia). The flattened body and long legs of the louse fly allows it to go scrambling amidst the feathers of its host, as it finds a sweet spot to chow down on some pigeon blood. The prime spot to do so is on the pigeon's belly amongst all the soft downy feathers

But P. canariensis is not the only ectoparasite on pigeons - as would be expected, pigeons are also home to many other parasites include a variety of actual lice. There are four species of lice that regularly hang out around the pigeon's belly, Columbicola columbae (which has been featured on this blog before), Campanulotes compar, Hohorstiella lata, and Menacanthus stramineus. So it can get pretty crowded on a pigeon's belly and there are plenty of opportunities for these parasites to mingle

Unlike the louse flies, lice don't have wings - so to travel from one host to another, they have to either crawl the whole way themselves, or borrow someone else's wings. By that I mean some lice hitch a ride on their fly-based namesake. In this study, scientists measured the mobility of the above mentioned four lice species commonly found on the rock pigeon, and their ability to hitch a ride on those P. canariensis.

They first tested how well each of those lice move about on their own by placing them on a piece of filter paper, and watch how far they managed to move in two minutes. Because lice tend to dislike light, the scientist shone a small light on them to coax them to move. Next, they tested the lice's ability to attach to louse flies by placing louse individually in a clear tube with a louse fly, and see how quickly they climb onboard - if at all. Finally, they test how well these lice managed to stay on the louse fly by repeating the attachment experiment, but this time they let P. canariensis does its thing and fly to the other side of a small room with a closed window, then recapture it to see whether the hitch-hiking louse had manage to hang on.

They found that not all lice are equally adept when it comes either moving on their own, or the finer art of leaving on a louse fly - and it seems aptitude in those two skills are inversely related. The most athletic lice like M. stramineus are also the worst at attaching themselves to P. canariensis, whereas those that can't move all that well off-host, such as C. columbae, are louse fly riders par excellence. Rock pigeons are pretty gregarious, so for the more mobile lice, they can easily cover the distance under their own steam. At the speed which the scientists recorded, M. stramineus is capable of covering one metre in the period of six minutes, which makes it quite the marathon runner in the louse world. In contrast, Co. columbae and Ca. compar are downright helpless anywhere away from a bed of pigeon feathers, but they are very skillful when it comes to piggybacking on a louse fly.

For some lice, leaving on a louse fly is not such a lousy way to travel.

Reference:
Bartlow, A. W., Villa, S. M., Thompson, M. W., & Bush, S. E. (2016). Walk or ride? Phoretic behaviour of amblyceran and ischnoceran lice. International Journal for Parasitology 46: 221-227.

Pseudopulex jurassicus

This is the seventh and final posts in a series of posts written by students from my third year Evolutionary Parasitology unit (ZOOL329/529) class of 2015. This particular post was written by Maxine Walter and it is about the fossils of some "giant fleas" dating from the Mesozoic period which might have fed on dinosaurs (Note: But see also this new paper which questions the interpretation of Pseudopulex as a "flea") (you can check out the previous post about how different parasitoid wasps induce different web-building behaviour in their zombified spider hosts here).

Reconstruction of Pseudopulex jurassicus 
by Wang Cheng via Oregon State University

Ever had an itch you just can’t scratch? Was it inappropriately placed while you were in pleasant company? Was it hard to reach? Or were your hands just otherwise occupied with day-to-day tasks? If you answered yes to any of the above, you must be familiar with the insanity-driving BURN that accompanies an un-neutralised itch. It’s no wonder that even the undisputed monster of Mesozoic beasts, the King of Dinosaurs and ruler of reptiles - Tyrannosaurus rex, was bugged by, er, bugs! Our beloved pooches scratch incessantly when infested by fleas. But spare a thought for the puny-armed Tyrant Reptile King himself!

But these were not your average bugs. Like the dinosaurs themselves, the parasites of the pre-mammalian reign were oversized with functional weaponry to match! A few years ago, a group of paleontologists uncovered evidence for up to three separate species of parasites categorized into the new genus Pseudopulex. This generic name has roots in Latin meaning “with visual similarity to flea(s)”. The three species P. jurassicus, P. magnus and P. tanlan appear to have plagued dinosaurs (and others) from the late Middle Jurassic (P. jurassicus) through to the early Cretaceous period (P. magnus and P. tanlan).

These giant ancient flea-like animals, possibly the first of their blood-sucking kind, featured many characteristics typical of an external (or ecto-) parasite including; a wingless, flattened body for wedging into the natural contours of the dinosaurs’ skin/feathers; reduced eyes (because how on Earth can you miss a giant walking buffet?); mouthparts for piercing thick hide; and scythe-like claws for added purchase and avoiding dislodgement.

Photo of Pseudopulex fossil from this paper

The striking piercing and blood-sucking apparatus that was the Pseudopulex's mouthparts, has been described by Entomology Curator Michael Engel as having saw-like projections, and zoologist George Poinar Jr. as “a large beak [that] looks like a syringe when you go to the doctor to get a shot… a flea shot if not a flu shot”. The unusually robust and sturdy nature of these siphon mouths is what led scientists such as Dr. Andre Nel from the Natural History Museum, France, to the idea that these parasites possibly attacked dinosaurs and their high flying pterosaurian counterparts. Although fleas were originally thought to have co-evolved alongside mammals, the large (and easily dislodged on small animals) size of these "fleas" indicates they likely feasted on thick skinned and/or feathered animals, such as Rex and other dinosaurs, rather than the small mammals that also existed during the time.

Of their striking dissimilarity to modern fleas though, is the non-existence of rear jumping legs in these ancient forms. With the lack of springy legs, and the addition of a thick elongate mouth, led scientists like Engel to suggest that Pseudopulex ambushed their large victims. Pseudopulex would have spent much of their lives anchored to hosts with their claws and mouthparts and possessed little running or jumping ability.

The exciting discovery of these three flea-like species has resulted in a massive re-think of scientific theory concerning flea evolution, and finally closes the circle on Mesozoic biodiversity and the intricacies of ancient food chains.

Reference:
Gao, T., Shih, C., Xu, X., Wang, S., & Ren, D. (2012). Mid-Mesozoic flea-like ectoparasites of feathered of haired vertebrates. Current Biology 22, 732-735.

This post was written by Maxine Walter

That does it for ZOOL329 class of 2015 - I'd like to thank all the students for their posts! Next month, it's back to writing my usual posts about newly published and interesting parasite papers which you might have missed, and/or not as widely covered by the usual news and media outlets - so stay tuned!

Gnathia maxillaris

Today's blog post features a study in which an infestation at an aquarium allowed a group of scientists to work out the life cycle of a common parasite. Now, we are not talking about your lounge room fish tank, but the biggest exhibition tank at Aquarium of Barcelona. The exhibition aquarium, call Oceanarium, measures 37000 cubic metres and is home to over 3000 fish of 80 different species. But amidst those 80 different species, they have a parasite which has made its way into the mix.

Adult female with larval brood (left) and newly-hatched zuphea (right)
Photos from Fig. 1 of the paper

The parasite in question - Gnathia maxillaris - belongs to a family of little blood-sucking crustaceans call Gnathiidae (we have previously featured gnathiids on this blog here). You can think of them as being like ticks of the sea - not only are they blood suckers, but they also alternates between a blood-feeding and a free-living stage during their development (like a tick). The parasitic stage of a gnathiid is called a Zuphea - it needs to attach and feed on a host for a while before it drops off to moult into its next stage call a Pranzia. The pranzia is free-living stage, but it doesn't stay that way for long, as the next step of its development is to grow into a slightly larger zuphea which jumps right back onboard a fish for a blood meal. A gnathiid needs to go through this parasitic-then-not-parasitic-then-parasitic-again development cycle three consecutive times (each successive stages are called Z1, P1, Z2, P2, Z3, P3) before it can become an adult (and you thought going through puberty was bad!)

There are over 190 known species of gnathiids from all across the world, but the full life-cycle has only been described for four of those species, and now G. maxillaris join that very short list. Even though G. maxillaris is relatively well-studied and fairly widespread across the Atlantic Ocean as well as the Baltic and Mediterranean seas, the complete life-cycle of G. maxillaris was unknown until now because much of this parasite's development takes place out of sight on the open sea.

But the infestation at Aquarium of Barcelona provided scientists with a great opportunity to study this life-cycle. They harvested G. maxillaris larvae by exploiting their natural attraction to light; at night, they turned on a set of light installed at the bottom of the aquarium, then pump the sea water through a fine-meshed plankton net that have also been placed there to trap the parasite larvae.

Clockwise from upper left:
Adult female, adult male, female carrying eggs
From Fig. 2 of the paper

With the harvested parasites, they exposed them to different species of potential fish hosts to observe their behaviour. They noticed that newly-hatched zuphea (Z1) cannot feed on blood because their mouthpart is so small the fish blood cells cannot fit through them. Instead, they feed on lymph and have to subsequently grow into the larger zuphea stages before they can incorporate blood into their diet.

They also discovered that G. maxillaris has different preference for specific parts of the fish's body, and this has consequences for the parasite's growth. While they can attach pretty much anywhere on the fish's body, they have a taste for the base of the fins, near the gill covers, or around the eyes - basically areas of high blood flow and where it would be harder for the fish to rub them off. They also noticed zuphea that attach themselves to the fish's fin feed for longer and takes more time to develop into a pranzia, most likely because there is less blood flow there than other parts of the body, so the parasite needs to stick around for longer to get a full meal.

In all, G. maxillaris' entire life-cycle takes about three months to complete, but that is if the water temperature is at 17.5 °C; if the surround temperature is 20 °C, then the parasite would take only two months to complete this cycle. At higher temperature, the female parasites also grew larger and produced more eggs. This is particularly pertinent to the current situation because one of the (many) consequences of increasing ocean temperature might mean in the future, the seas will be filled with more gnathiids that grow faster than ever before, which is bad news for fish. Not only are they blood-suckers, like ticks on land, gnathiids can also act as vectors for various other parasites.

While an infestation of tiny "ticks of the sea" might not be the best news for a national aquarium, when life hands you an infestation - you might as well do some science with it!

Reference:
Hispano, C., Bulto, P., & Blanch, A. R. (2014). Life cycle of the fish parasite Gnathia maxillaris (Crustacea: Isopoda: Gnathiidae). Folia Parasitologica 61: 277-284.

Columbicola columbae

You would think that of all living things, parasites would have the least need to move around. After all, it is sitting in its ideal habitat and is already (in a way) surrounded by food. Why would it need to go anywhere else? But most parasites usually reside at a very specific part of the host's body - at some stage, it would have had to makes its way there somehow, even if it stays in one spot after that. Furthermore for some parasites, where they live on the host is not the same as where they eat, so they have to commute regularly in order to get their meal ticket.

Photo by Vince Smith at phthiraptera.info

One such parasite is the humble pigeon louse (Columbicola columbae), which is usually found hanging out on the wing feathers of pigeons. It has evolved a narrow body that allows it to fit snugly between the barbs of the flight feathers and safe from the preening beak of the host. But while wing feathers are a nice place to seek shelter, they do not make for such an appetising meal - they are far too tough for C. columbae to chew on. So when the pigeon louse gets hungry, it needs to make a move to the body region where the more palatable, downy feathers are found.

So how does C. columbae find its way from the wing to the body? It's not like it can just look up Google Pigeon or something like that and get directions. Well, based the study we are featuring today on this blog, they use temperature to find their way.

Like us, birds are homeotherms - which means they keep a consistent body temperature, regardless of the outside environment. But even for a homeothermic animal, the temperature is not consistent across the body. For example, the temperature at the wings and tail of a pigeon is about 32 °C (89.6 °F), whereas the body region temperature is approximately 36 °C (96.8 °F). So are the lice using temperature differentials across parts of the pigeon's body as a cue for navigation? To find out, a pair of researchers did a series of experiments to determine what temperature the lice preferred under different circumstances.

They did a choice experiment where they put some pigeon lice in a glass petri dish with one end resting on top of a heated metal block. They also did another experiment where they placed some lice on a piece of filter paper sit on a heating apparatus that they built to generate a radial temperature gradient. In both experiments, they recorded where the lice moved to and found while the lice did respond according to the temperature differences, it was also dependent on whether they were hungry or not.

Lice which had a full belly prefer to hang out at 32 °C (wing region temperature), but those that have been experimentally starved for 18-20 hours tend to move to where it is 36 °C (body region temperature). But if down feathers are so tasty, why don't they just hang out there all the time? While the pigeon's main body is covered in tastier feathers, it is also more exposed to the murderous beak of a preening host. Whereas on the wings, the skinny body of C. columbae allows it to tuck itself between the barbs of the pigeon's flight feathers, and stay safe and sound.

So some lice like it hot, but only if they are hungry.

Reference:
Harbison, C. W., & Boughton, R. M. (2014). Thermo-orientation and the movement of feather-feeding lice on hosts. Journal of Parasitology 100: 433-441.

Anilocra nemipteri

Photo from Figure 1 of the paper

The parasite in the study being featured today makes a living riding around on the top of a fish's head and occasionally gnawing on its face. It is in the same family as the infamous tongue-biter, the Cymothoidae, though technically this one is more of a face-hugger.

Anilocra nemipteri is found on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia and it makes a living by hitching a ride (and feeds) from the bridled monocle bream, Scolopsis bilineata. It is a pretty common parasite - in some areas, up to 30 percent of monocle bream carry one of these crustaceans on their head like a nasty blood-sucking beret that stay attached for years.

As you can see from the photo, A. nemipteri is a fairly big parasites comparing with the size of the fish (in some case they can reach as almost one-third the length of the host fish!), and having a parasite of that size hanging off your face is going to be quite a drag - literally. That is bad news for a little fish like the monocle bream that needs to make a quick getaway from any hungry predators on the reef. So just how much of a drag is A. nemipteri? A related species - Anilocra apogonae - which clings to the cardinal fish (Cheilodipterus quinquelineatus) is known to cause their host to swim slower and have lower endurance. Does the same apply for A. nemipteri and the monocle bream?

To find out, scientists compared how quickly the fish can respond to an attack and their Flight Initiation Distance (FID) in both a laboratory setting and in the field. The FID is the distance from a predator at which an animal decides to flee - risk-takers have a shorter FID. They divided the monocle bream into three different groups: parasite-free fish, fish carrying an A. nemipteri, infected fish which just had their parasite removed.

Photo from Figure 1 of the paper

The research team simulated an attack by a bird (with a weighted PVC pipe) on fish in specially-designed experimental tanks and filmed the response to measure the fish's reaction time to the attack. Even though one would think all that face-gnawing from A. nemipteri would have weakened their host, and not to mention the body of the parasite itself causing significant drag, the escape performance of parasitised fish was not all that different from unparasitised - they reacted and got away from the attack just as quickly as their unburdened buddies. In the field experiment, the scientists donned snorkelling gear and tried to approach any monocle breams they spotted and measured how close they could get to the fish before they fled. There, they found parasitised fish have a slightly shorter FID than parasite-free fish, but not significantly so.

Fish that are infected by A. nemipteri are smaller than uninfected ones, and it just so happen that smaller fish tend to allow predators to get closer to them before fleeing. But whether this is due to the parasite is another matter. Are parasitised fish smaller because their growth have been stunt by A. nemipteri? Or does this face-hugger simply prefer smaller fish because larger and older fish might have built up an immunity to it?

Though it may seem less exciting when we find a parasite doesn't cause much behavioural changes in its host, it is vital to our understanding of host-parasite relationships. Perhaps it means the host is able to compensate for the presence of the parasite. Also it is not clear what the long term cost of having A. nemipteri might be over the life time of the fish. It is also important to treat such a case in its context. Unlike other parasite which have a complex life-cycle and depend upon its host getting eaten by a predator to reach maturity, A. nemipteri is an external parasite that simply sticks to a host and stay for life - if the parasitised fish is eaten by a predator, it'll go down with the host like a bit of garnish and be digested too.

So it is probably just as well that A. nemipteri is not too much of a drag to have around.

Reference:
Binning, S. A., Barnes, J. I., Davies, J. N., Backwell, P. R., Keogh, J. S., & Roche, D. G. (2014). Ectoparasites modify escape behaviour, but not performance, in a coral reef fish. Animal Behaviour 93: 1-7.