Checklist of chewing lice (Phthiraptera: Amblycera and ischnocera) on birds of Peru

Abstract

Checklist of chewing lice (Phthiraptera: Amblycera and Ischnocera) on birds of Peru. Peru is one of the countries with the highest diversity of birds worldwide, having about 1,876 species in its territory. However, studies focused on chewing lice (Phthiraptera) have been carried out on only a minority of bird species. The available data are distributed in 87 publications in the national and international literature. In this checklist we summarize all the records to date of chewing lice on wild and domestic birds in Peru. Among the 301 species of birds studied, 266 species of chewing lice were recorded. The localities with the highest records were the Departments of Cusco, Junín, Lima and Madre de Dios. No records of birds pa-rasitized by these lice have been found in seven departments of Peru. Studies related to lice have only been reported in 16 % of bird species in the country, indicating that research concerning chewing lice has not yet been performed for the the majority of birds in Peru.