The African hinged terrapin genus Pelusios currently contains 17 recognized species. We describe an additional new species with two subspecies from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. According to phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial DNA, the new species is closely related to P. subniger, whereas three nuclear loci (C-mos, RAG2, R35) suggest a closer relationship to P. bechuanicus and P. upembae. Morphologically, the new species resembles in plastral shape P. subniger, but differs in plastral coloration in having a diffuse dark plastral pattern instead of the blotched pattern of P. subniger. The two subspecies of the new species are characterized by distinct mitochondrial clades and private alleles in the nuclear RAG2 and R35 loci. According to an examination of museum specimens and photographic records, the new species occurs largely west of the Rift Valley, while P. subniger is distributed east of the Rift Valley. Museum specimens and iNaturalist records suggest that the two species could occur sympatrically in central Tanzania. Furthermore, we found no evidence for any genetic distinctness of P. subniger from the Seychelles, supporting that the subspecies from there is invalid.

We collected 1,671 Dermacentor reticulatus ticks from 17 locations in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. We found 47.9% overall prevalence of Rickettsia species in ticks over all locations. Sequence analysis confirmed that all tested samples belonged to R. raoultii, the causative agent of tick-borne lymphadenopathy.

Abstract Ten species of the louse genus Myrsidea belonging to the “serini-species-group” have been reviewed. A redescription of Myrsidea quadrifasciata (Piaget, 1880), the earliest described and valid species of this species complex, is given and a neotype for this species is designated. Nine new junior synonymies of M. quadrifasciata are proposed and discussed. The new synonyms and their respective type hosts are: Myrsidea anoxanthi Price and Dalgleish, 2007 from Loxipasser anoxanthus (Gosse, 1847), Myrsidea argentina (Kellogg, 1906) from Spinus magellanicus (Vieillot, 1805), Myrsidea balati Macháček, 1977 from Passer montanus (Linnaeus, 1758), Myrsidea darwini Palma and Price, 2010 from Geospiza fuliginosa Gould, 1837, Myrsidea major (Piaget, 1880) from Plectrophenax nivalis (Linnaeus, 1758), Myrsidea serini (Séguy, 1944) from Serinus serinus (Linnaeus, 1766), Myrsidea queleae Tendeiro, 1964 from Quelea quelea lathami (Smith, A., 1836), Myrsidea textoris Klockenhoff, 1984 from Ploceus cucullatus cucullatus (Müller, 1776), and Myrsidea viduae Tendeiro, 1993 from Vidua macroura (Pallas, 1764). Intraspecific morphometric variability, relative genetic divergence (based on a 379 bp portion of the mitochondrial COI gene and a 347 bp portion of the nuclear EF-1α gene), geographical distribution, and host associations, including 8 new host records for these lice, are discussed. Taking into consideration these parameters we suggest that the only way to deal with these taxa is to follow concept of subspecies with the following taxa and their geographic distributon: Palearctic Region: M. q. quadrifasciata and M. q. serini, Neotropical Region: M. q. anoxanthi, M. q. argentina, M. q. darwini, Paleotropic Region: M. q. queleae, M. q. textoris and M. q. viduae.