Animal Sciences Commons^™

Laelapine Mite (Acari: Laelapidae) Morphometric Analysis Reflects Taxonomic And Geographic Clusters Of South American Oryzomyines (Rodentia: Sigmodontinae), Donald D. Gettinger, Robert D. Owen

MANTER: Journal of Parasite Biodiversity

Ongoing efforts to survey and inventory nonvolant small mammals across the Neotropics are beginning to reveal a highly structured and diverse fauna of rodents and marsupials. By increasing the foundation of specimens in museums around the world, it has become possible, for the first time, to evaluate and quantify the similarities and differences among small mammals collected from a broad range of geographic locali­ties, ecoregions, and habitats. Because ectoparasites were sampled in the process of collecting mammalian voucher specimens, we are able to study the laelapine mites (Acari: Laelapidae) associated with well-iden­tified and verifiable host specimens. Here, we evaluate morphometric …