New State Records for the Flea, Foxella ignota (Siphonaptera: Ceratophyllidae) from Oklahoma and Sucking Louse, Hoplopleura sciuiricola (Phthiraptera: Hoplopleuridae), from Iowa and Oklahoma

Little is known about the ectoparasites of the wild mammals (excluding bats) of Oklahoma (Ellis 1955; Stark 1970; Reisen and Best 1973; Tyler and Buscher 1975). Here we report two new state records for a hoplopleurid sucking louse from Iowa and Oklahoma, and a state record for a ceratophyllid flea from Oklahoma. During September 2012, 14 adult plains pocket gophers, Geomys bursarius (Shaw) from Boiling Springs State Park, Woodward County (36.453877oN, 99.302671oW) were taken using Victor® gopher traps. During March 2013, a single adult female fox squirrel, Sciurus niger was found dead on a road 8.0 km W of Broken Bow off St. Hwy. 3, McCurtain County (34.064338oN, 94.828566oW). Ectoparasites were collected, preserved in 70% ethanol, and processed and identified using appropriate guides (Benton 1983; Kim et al. 1986). Voucher ectoparasites are deposited in the General Ectoparasite Collection in the Department of Biology at Georgia Southern University (accession nos. L3548, L3580). Host vouchers of G. bursarius are deposited in the Henderson State University (HSU) Collection, Arkadelphia, Arkansas as HSU 699; the S. niger is in the Eastern Oklahoma State College (EOSC) teaching collection. Nine fleas (three males, six females) were taken from two (14%) G. bursarius and identified as the ceratophyllid, Foxella ignota (Baker). This flea is fairly widespread in the western two-thirds of North America (from the Mississippi River west to Alberta and British Columbia in the north and Arizona and California in the south) where preferred hosts are pocket gophers (Geomys spp. and Thomomys spp.) although it has occasionally also been reported from mammalian ecological associates of these rodents (Lewis 1975; Benton 1980; Traub et al. 1983; Lewis and Wilson 2006). Foxella ignota has not previously been reported from Oklahoma. Eleven subspecies of F. ignota are recognized by both Lewis (1975) and Traub et al. (1983). The specimens from Oklahoma belong to the nominate subspecies, F. i. ignota Jordan. Previous records of this subspecies are from Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa (including the type locality, Ames), Minnesota and Nebraska (Benton 1980; Traub et al. 1983) (Fig. 1). The Oklahoma record therefore extends the known southern distributional limit of F. i. ignota. Further southward in Mexico, F. ignota is replaced by three congeneric pocket gopher-associated fleas, F. hoogstraali Traub, F. macgregori Barrera and F. mexicana I. Fox as discussed by Lewis (1975). 25