Species Composition of Parasitic Mites of the Subfamily Picobiinae (Acariformes: Syringophilidae) Associated with African Barbets (Piciformes: Lybiidae).

In this study, we conducted a parasitological investigation of the quill mite fauna of the subfamily Picobiinae (Acariformes: Prostigmata: Syringophilidae) associated with African barbets (Aves: Piciformes: Lybiidae). We examined twenty-seven host species, representing 57% of the forty-seven known host species in the family Lybiidae, belonging to seven genera (70% of the ten genera in the family). Our research revealed that ten host species were infested by three species of picobiine mites belonging to the genus Tanopicobia : (1) Tanopicobia hallae Sikora and Skoracki, sp. n., from three species of the genus Lybius and two species of the genus Tricholaema , (2) Tanopicobia stactolaema Sikora and Skoracki, sp. n., from two species of the genus Stactolaema , and (3) Tanopicobia trachyphoni Skoracki et al., 2020, collected from three host species of the genus Trachyphonus . Our findings demonstrate that birds belonging to the family Lybiidae have a specific parasite fauna consisting exclusively of mites of the genus Tanopicobia ; this mite genus is apparently restricted to African barbets.