PSYCHE 



VOL. XXII APRIL, 1915 No. 2 



A NEW TRICHODECTES FROM THE GOAT. 



By Vernon L. Kellogg and Shoxosuke Nakayama, 

 Stanford University, California. 



The domestic goat has long been known to harbor a Mallophagan 

 (biting louse) species peculiar to it and to one or two related wild 

 forms, most notably the chamois. This parasite, Trichodectes 

 climax, was recognized by Nitzsch a century ago, and has since 

 been recorded from domestic goats in all part of the world. It is a 

 cosmopolitan parasite species because its host is cosmopolitan. 



Also it is the only Trichodectes until now found on the domestic 

 goat. It is characteristic of the goat just as another Tricho- 

 dectes species, sph(srocephalus, is characteristic of a certain nearly 

 related host, the domestic sheep and two or three of its wild con- 

 geners, (Ovis ornata, 0. melanocephala, et cd.). So far sheep have 

 not been found to harbor any other Mallophagan than T. sphcero- 

 cephcdus. 



But the goat, at least certain individuals of the merino goat, 

 living in California, do afford food and shelter to another and larger 

 species of Trichodectes than the long-known and widespread 

 climax. This species we are describing in this paper. 



The specimens of the new species (many males and females) 

 were received this month (November) from Professor W. B. Herms 

 of the University of California, who fook them from a "young 

 merino goat received from near Inverness, Marin County, Cali- 

 fornia." Professor Herms reports the goat as "very badly in- 

 fested," adding in a later letter, that he has "never before seen an 

 animal so badly infested with biting lice as is the goat in our pos- 

 session, and I am told other goats in the flock from which this one 

 was taken are equally infested." 



The new species is unusually large for a Trichodectes, the fe- 

 males being more than two millimeters in length (some individuals 

 almost 2| mm.), the males not quite so long. T. climax hardly 



