The moment you’ve all been waiting for is here…Week 37’s mystery louse is Polyplax parataterae Kim and Emerson 1973 (Anoplura: Polyplacidae)! This species is distinguished by its paratergites on abdominal segments 3 & 4 having one long and one short apical seta and segments 5 & 6 having a pair of very short apical seta (Kim & Emerson 1973).
Here is a photo of the genus of gerbils on which these lice were collected. Gerbilliscus is pretty common throughout the world, especially in Africa (Colangelo et al 2007).
Genetic studies on West African gerbils have revealed that these rodents have unusually large sex chromosomes and that Gerbilliscus is monophyletic (Volobouev et al 2007). These studies have been key in separating species in a group lacking strong morphological characters to use. Volobouev et al also suggest that while molecular and chromosomal data have unevenly represented east African gerbil species, G- and C- banding analyses are still able to shed light on the gerbil phylogeny.
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