Margareth Cardozo-de-Almeida/⁺, Pedro Marcos Linardi*, Jane Costa

Núcleo de Informatização, Coleção Entomológica, Departamento de Entomologia, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz,
Av. Brasil 4365, 21045-900 Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil *Departamento de Parasitologia, ICB, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Caixa Postal 486, 30161-970 Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil

Received 29 December 1998
Accepted 26 March 1999

This study presents a list of 34 Anoplura type specimens deposited in the Werneck Collection of Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. It includes 18 holotypes, 16 allotypes, 88 paratypes and 10 neotypes, distributed among the genera: Enderleinellus, Fahrenholzia, Haematopinus, Hoplopleura, Linognathus, Microthoracius, Pecaroecus, Polyplax and Pterophthirus. The types are related according to their respective data and literature.

Key words: type specimens - Anoplura - sucking lice - Werneck Collection - Entomological Collection - Instituto Oswaldo Cruz - Brazil

The Entomological Collection of the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (IOC) includes approximately 1.2 million specimens, representing all the orders, being one of the most expressive of Latin America. It is constituted by a general collection and by the Herman Lent Collection of Hemiptera, which presents specimens of Reduviidae and mainly of sub-family Triatominae, the vectors of Chagas disease. It also includes other historical collections such as Adolpho Lutz, Cesar Pinto, Costa Lima, Henrique Aragão, Lauro Travassos, Otavio Mangabeira Filho, FL Werneck e JF Zikan. These historical collections were closed after the death of their dedicated researchers, being a rich historical and scientific holding that integrates specimens captured by the researchers themselves during the first expeditions undertaken in Brazil since 1900.

The historical Werneck Collection includes specimens of the orders Anoplura, Hemiptera, Mallophaga and Siphonaptera, deriving from captures undertaken by Werneck and other researchers, performed in 1911-1960, in Brazil and other countries, as well as by donations to IOC, provided by international and Brazilian institutions. In the Werneck Collection, there are 1,246 slides of Anoplura containing 120 species, from which 34 are type specimens and other 88 paratypes and 10 neotypes, summing 125 slides.

In attention to the determination 72D of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, which says that "every institution in which types are deposited should publish lists of type-material in its possession or custody", some surveys on the type species of various groups have been carried out in the entomological collections of IOC: triatomines (Gonçalves et al. 1994), culicides (Marchon-Silva et al. 1996) and specimens of superfamily Apoidea (Ferraz 1997). Intending update and disseminate the content of the Entomological Collection of IOC, the present study addresses the type specimens deposited in the Werneck Collection of this institution.

Anoplura are ectoparasitic insects, exclusively of mammals, presenting an obligatory hema-tophagy in nymphal and adult stages, commonly known as sucking lice. Their parasitological importance derives from the actions they exert on hosts as infesting agents (Nelson et al. 1977), or as vectors diseases: to human beings - louse-borne typhus (epidemic typhus), trench fever, relapsing fever, transmitted by Pediculus humanus (reviewed by Weidhaas & Gratz 1982) - or among rodents: murine typhus (endemic typhus), transmitted by species of Polyplax and Hoplopleura (Traub et al. 1978).

Given their parasitic specificity, Anoplura are of fundamental importance to studies on co-evolution with their respective hosts (Hopkins 1949, Vanzolini & Guimarães 1955, Kim 1988, Barker 1994). Until now, 33 species were recorded in Brazil, including 17 cosmopolitan (Durden & Musser 1994). Among Brazilian or neotropical species, eight were described by Werneck (1932a, b, 1933, 1937, 1942), four by Ferris (1916, 1921), two by Linardi et al. (1984a, b), one by Guimarães (1950) and another by Johnson (1972). According to the geographical distribution presented by Durden and Musser (1994), we might consider the possibility of other 10 species also occurring in Brazil.

The methodology applied here was the same used by Marchon-Silva et al. (1996). Besides the information about type specimens we added the name of the host on which the material was collected.

DISCUSSION

According to Kim and Ludwig (1978), the Neotropical region concentrates 11% of the whole world anoplurofauna. Presently, 15 families are known, and they are distributed in 49 genera and 532 species (Durden & Musser 1994), from which 120 (22.6%) are represented in the Werneck Collection of IOC. The contribution of Werneck for the improvement of our knowledge on Anoplura is highly significant, once he had described 34 species (6.4%), from those recorded in the world as a whole. It must be also stressed that until the middle of the century, while only 255 species were known (Ferris 1951), Werneck had already described 21 species from several regions of the world. Consequently, the result of this effort, now documented in the Werneck Collection of IOC, is indispensable for the modern taxonomy, noticing that through the comparative study of the characteres, the reference colletions represent nowadays a starting point to new investigations (Martins 1983).

In honour to his work, the author's name was given to one genera and two species, by different authors: Werneckia, by Ferris (1951); Pterophthirus wernecki, by Guimarães (1950) and Eulinognathus wernecki, by Castro and Cicchino (1986).

To Dr Rubens Pinto de Mello, for the revision of the manuscript and appropriate suggestions. To Ana Paula Rufino Amaro for the bibliographic survey and the maintenance of the Werneck Collection material. To Ronaldo Ribeiro and Veronica Marchon-Silva for storing the collection data.

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28. Work performed with support of Papes-Fiocruz Project and presented on the I Bienal de Pesquisa do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz.

Copyright 1999 Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz - Fiocruz