Fróðskaparrit - 31.12.2000, Qupperneq 131

The Fleas (Siphonaptera)
of the Faroe Islands
135
Yvirlit yvir loppur skrásettar í Føroyum
Lars Trolle and
DK-3751 Østermarie
Bornholm, Denmark
Úrtak
Henda grein viðger loppur í Føroyum. Til fyri stuttum
vóru bert tvey sløg kend úr Føroyum, men við at leita
nágreiniliga á fuglum og súgdjórum eftir loppum og í
fuglareiðrum eftir ormverum og loppueggjum hevur tað
borið til at økja um talið til níggju - fýra teirra eru súg-
djóraloppur og fimm eru fuglaloppur.
Abstract
This paper deals with the flea fauna of the Faroe Islands.
Until recently only two species were known from the is-
lands, but intensive collecting from birds and mammals
and hatching from nest material has increased the num-
ber of species to nine - four of which are mammal fleas
and five are bird fleas.
Fleas are possibly the least liked of all ani-
mals - everybody hates them, nobody loves
them or even likes them with the possible
exception of the authors and a handful of
others (approximately 150 persons) on a
world basis.
Until recently only two species were
known from the Faroe Islands e.g. the hu-
man flea (Pulex irritans) and a common
Jens-Kjeld Jensen
FO-270 Nólsoy
Faroe Islands
bird flea (Ceratophyllus gallinae) (Henrik-
sen, 1929) locally known as “the starling
flea”. Of these two the former was once
very common (Rasmussen, 1928), but is
now probably extinct, a fact that nobody re-
grets, the latter is still doing very well in-
deed.
This was the situation until 1996, when
we agreed to investigate the flea fauna of
the islands. Jens-Kjeld Jensen was respon-
sible for collecting and mounting the fleas
in canada balsam, while Lars Trolle identi-
fied the species. The investigation ran over
three years (1996, 1997 and 1998). We
didn’t do this completely alone - a lot of
people helped us and we would like to
thank: Nils Jákup Absalonsen, Esmar Sør-
ensen, Kristina Petersen, Espen i Eyðans-
stovu, Andreas F. Poulsen, Ruth Simonsen,
Olavur Sørensen, Aksal Poulsen, T. Søren-
sen, Alf Sørensen, Kinna úr Dímun, Páll
Thomsen, R.L.C.Pilgrim, Eyðbjørt Simon-
sen, Bergur Hanusson, Sólbjørn Hansen, H.
Mikkelsen, Svend Krosstein, Dánjal Jesp-
Fróðskaparrit 48. bók 2001: 135-144