Last week’s Friday Night lice mystery louse was … (drum roll) … Lemurphthirus stigmosus Ferris, 1954 (Polyplacidae). According to its label, the louse in our photograph, specimen PSUC_FEM 10005440-1, was collected in southern Angola in 1954, off of a Senegal Galago, a.k.a. Lesser Bushbaby (Primates: Galagidae: Galago senegalensis). The stated host species looks like this:
According to Wilson & Reeder (2005), however, this species of bushbaby doesn’t live in Angola! My hypothesis, therefore, is that our louse specimen was actually collected from a Mohol Bushbaby (Galago moholi), which is also listed by Durden & Musser (1994) as a host species for Lemurphthirus stigmosus. Here it is:
And another ridiculous photo of a ridiculously cute primate: