Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1996, Qupperneq 111

115
Blood-sucking mite Dermanyssus hirundinis
(Herm.) (Acari, Gamasida, Dermanyssidae)
found in a nest ofSwallow (Hirundo
rustica) from the Faroes
Peter Gjelstrup
Natural History Museum, Universitetsparken, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Úrtak
Mottur, ið súgva blóð, Dermanyssus hirundinis, vóru
funnar í túsundatali í einum svalareiðri (Hirundo rus-
tica) í Tórshavn. Mottuslagið verður lýst og borið saman
við Dermanyssus gallinae, sum erkent um allan heim
sum eitt skaðadýraslag, ið heldur til, har ið flogfenaður
verður aldur. D. Hirundinis er fyrst og fremst funnin í
útnyrðingspartinum av Evropa.
Abstract
Thousands of bloodsucking mites, Dermanyssus
hirundinis were found in a nest of swallow (Hirundo
rusticá) from Tórshavn, the Faroe Islands. The mite spe-
cies is described and compared to Dermanyssus galli-
nas, which is known world-wide as a pest species in
poultry farms. D. hirundinis is primarely found in nort-
westem Europe.
Introduction
Few swallows (Hirundo rustica) nest each
year in the Faroe Islands but their breeding
success as well as the amount of parasites
and other invertebrates in the nest material
has untill now not been investigated.
In august 1996 a nest of swallow was
collected from a garage close to The Muse-
um of Natural History in Tórshavn. The
nest had been occupied with four nestlings
this summer and had been abandoned two
weeks previous the sampling time. The nest
was cut down and put into a plastic zip-lock
bag. When handling the mites immediately
left the nest material and crawled inside the
plastic bag five to ten minutes. They hereby
returned to the nest material, apparently be-
cause there was no bird to suck blod from.
A week later, back in Denmark, the mites
were still extremely active when handliríg
the nest and therefore the nest was directly
placed in 70% alcohol. Traditional extrac-
tion was impossible because of the extreme
activity of the mites.
The simple construction of the nest with
few straws and feathers and only covered
with clay soil on the outer edges made it
possible to separate the mites from the nest
material.
The number of mites was estimated by
counting the number of mites in five inci-
dental subsets of the material. The mites
were determined to species level and other
invertebrates to taxa as shown.
Fróðskaparrit 44. bók 1996: 115-118