The Louse of Elephants. Haematomyzus elephantis Piaget (Mallophaga: Haematomyzidae)

Abstract

It is now slightly more than 60 years since Piaget described as Haematomyzus elephantis an extraordinary insect found by him living as an ectoparasite upon an African elephant in the Zoological Garden of Rotterdam. The insect was considered by its describer to be a sucking louse, and this assignment has been accepted by almost all of the few entomologists who have since been privileged to examine specimens. Walker, who in ignorance of Piaget'os work, redescribed the species as Idolocoris elephantis, regarded it as constituting a new family of Hemiptera Heteroptera near the bed bugs. Since that time no one has questioned the belief that it is a sucking louse and for it Enderlein named a family, the Haematomyzidae, in the Anoplura.