Two new publications have been added today, both of which I received late last year during the long period of only working on Brueelia. The first is a Swedish article on the Swedish Taxonomic Initiative, which isn’t very interesting, but the second, co-authored with some researchers in Poland, is more interesting, being a list of the type specimens in Zlotorzycka’s collection in Wroclaw. Both can be found under “Publications”.
Så här ser några av lössen jag arbetar med ut, förresten:
We were catching birds in Gittan’s garden, as well as that of a neighbour, today. Four birds were caught, two Fieldfares Turdus pilaris, one Tree Sparrow Passer montanus, and one Nuthatch Sitta europaea. As Gittan was at work, I got to band all of them, meaning that I’ve now banded birds in Sweden for the first time since… I think I banded some in Umeå when I was there a few years ago, but I’m not sure. Otherwise, it would be the first time since Padjelanta in 2008. I’ve banded more birds in Japan than in Sweden, probably, and did do some banding in Canada, but before Padjelanta, I think I have to go back to the 90s before I get to any banding I remember having done (at Landsjön, when I was going to be a banding assistant, before gymnasium…).
Interestingly, both the thrushes had lice. We caught a male and a female, possibly a breeding couple. They had different species of lice, though, which makes me wonder.
We got five or so Brueelia sp. from the body feathers of the male. There are two species of Brueelia s. lat. on this bird, and I can’t tell for sure which one it is before I’ve looked at them in the lab. Judging from where we caught them, and the short glimpses I got of them (Heidi did the collecting), they are likely Brueelia marginata (Burmeister, 1838), which will eventually be placed in the genus Guimaraesiella Eichler, 1949, after our revision.
The female, on the other hand, gave us about 20 Philopterus bischoffi Eichler, 1951 from the head.
If the birds were a mated pair, it seems reasonable to assume that the lice would spread laterally between them, during mating. This has previously been shown to be the case for lice on Pheasants Phasianus colchicus, by Hillgarth (1996). At the very least, the body lice should have had the opportunity to transfer, but these were only found on the male. The question (which I cannot answer) is: are these not a breeding pair, or did the lice fail to transfer? Or something else?
In any case, two new louse species collected for this trip, and this is the first time we get 50% of the birds we catch during a day having lice! That doesn’t sound as impressive when you consider that there were only four birds.. when I was in Canada catching shorebirds, we generally got to 90-100% infested birds!
3 dagar kvar. Igår blev jag äntligen klar med alla illustrationer till det stora Brueelia-arbetet, i alla fall på papper. De ska scannas och sedan editeras, men förutom det är allt klart. Cirka 120 helsides-illustrationer blir det, men de konstrueras av mellan 4-10 a4-illustrationer vardera, så högen med handritade illustrationer är ca. 500 sidor lång. Massor av jobb! Och det är bara första artikeln om Brueelia-komplexet. Efter jag kommer hem kommer jag börja med 6-7 uppföljande artiklar om enstaka släkten… så jag har att göra! Utöver det ska jag och Tomas från Tjeckien gå igenom en massa Philopterus-komplex-löss tillsammans, och jag har en massa annat planerat…
Bara 31 dagar kvar, och än så länge inte lurad, framför allt eftersom jag mest suttit och gjort illustrationer på mitt rum… Så här ser det ut:
Read the rest of this entry
Fick precis en artikel som varit i review sedan början av december accepterad, och kommer lägga upp den här snart! Oerhört lång review-tid för en så pass kort artikel (20 sidor plus sex helsidesillustrationer, en halvsidesillustration), men det gör ju detsamma.
Here’s a list of things I have had piling up while I was gone, just so people understand why I’m not updating this very much:
– Sorting through the material Heidi, Emily, and I collected in Sweden;
– Looking at a small sample of lice from Greenland I got from Mihaela Ilieva (through Sabrina who met her at a conference in Lithuania);
– Looking at some plover lice from Madagascar I got from a PhD student in Hungary;
– Looking at about 1700 slides I just got from Slovenia (mainly Brueelia);
– Looking at some samples Andrew collected in the Philippines, which may include some target species for the Brueelia project;
– Edit the illustrations for three papers I want to finish this year (one with new Emersoniella, one with new species of Paraphilopterus from New Guinea, and one with new records and species of pigeon lice from Japan);
– Make more illustrations, and edit the old ones, for the Brueelia project;
– Help with the Brueelia phylogeny article;
– Mount and look at Coot lice I got from Kevin Johnson;
– Collate all the collection data from Sweden and try to get that into a faunal report at least;
– Start thinking about what to use the ecological data we collected in Sweden for;
– Start doing descriptions for a paper on Philopteroides from New Guinea.
So there are lots of louse-related things to do!
As we have to leave for Mörbylånga already at 8 am tomorrow morning, today was the last day we participated in the catching here at Ottenby. Read the rest of this entry
I was under strict orders from Heidi to sleep long today, as I have been sleeping so poorly lately. Didn’t help, though, but I did stay in bed until just before seven at least, and woke up to find that my legs are feeling almost normal now. The knees were a bit wobbly this morning, but it has all sorted itself out during the day, except that they still feel a bit stiff, possibly because I rested my weight poorly on them yesterday. In any case, I seem to be restored more or less to normal, to the great relief of everyone, especially Olof who had served a mushroom toast the day before, and was afraid that the leg business was a result of some poisonous mushroom.
We searched 68 birds today, 49 of which were Song Thrushes Turdus philomelos and ten Sparrowhawks Accipiter nisus, with the remainder being a diverse group including the first Brambling Fringilla montifringilla of this trip. We got lice from a total of 12 of the thrushes, which can be compared to none in the first 43 I collected (before this trip) and 2 from the first 35 collected during this trip. Most of them are Menacanthus, but I think we got one or two Brueelia as well.
I had the idea once that infested birds should generally migrate later than non-infested birds, as there is a slight (but noticeable) effect on metabolic rates of the hosts when they are infested. Maybe this is some sort of evidence for this? Hard to tell with this very small sample size, I suppose.
34 birds searched today, with 9 having lice!
Greater Ringed Plover Charadrius hiaticula – Quadraceps spp.
Dunlin Calidris alpina – Lunaceps schismatus and prob. Austromenopon sp.
2 Starlings Sturnus vulgaris – Sturnidoecus sturni and Brueelia nebulosa
3 Tree Sparrows Passer montanus – either Philopterus or Sturnidoecus (= Rostrinirmus)
2 House Sparrows Passer domesticus – same as Tree Sparrow. Read the rest of this entry
Treeweasels 