Review Article |
Corresponding author: Terry D. Galloway ( terry.galloway@umanitoba.ca ) Academic editor: David Langor
© 2019 Terry D. Galloway.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Galloway TD (2019) Siphonaptera of Canada. In: Langor DW, Sheffield CS (Eds) The Biota of Canada – A Biodiversity Assessment. Part 1: The Terrestrial Arthropods. ZooKeys 819: 455-462. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.819.25458
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There are currently 154 species of fleas recorded in Canada in four superfamilies and seven families. Only two species have been added to the list since the previous summary by
biodiversity assessment, Biota of Canada, fleas, Siphonaptera
Fleas are a relatively small group, with more than 2200 species known worldwide. Species in Canada range in size from <2 mm (the introduced sticktight flea, Echidnophaga gallinacea (Westwood)) to >9 mm (Hystrichopsylla schefferi Chapin, likely the largest flea in the world). Fleas have profound medical and veterinary significance, and are best known for their role as vectors for the bacterial agent of bubonic plague. Their consequent historic impact on humans and society has been immeasurable. Flea vectors and bubonic plague have been recorded in Canada, and although known to occur in humans, have not been of major concern in recent years. However, the fear of plague epidemics was the stimulus for some of the early work on fleas in western Canada. As a result, our knowledge of the flea fauna of Canada is very good, largely through the efforts of George P. Holland. He produced two monographs (
The following account is for the 154 species known to occur in Canada (Table
The higher classification of
The flea fauna of Canada is relatively well known; it is expected that at least another 23 species may be discovered, more than half of these in the family Ceratophyllidae. These estimates were generated by considering the fauna of adjacent jurisdictions (northern United States, including Alaska) that include species with ranges in close proximity and for which known hosts occur in Canada. I know of no undescribed species of fleas in Canada.
There are enormous gaps in the known ranges of various species across the country. For example, Tarsopsylla octodecimdentatus coloradensis (Baker) is a nest flea of red squirrel, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus (Erxleben), and Kueichenlipsylla atrox (Jordan) is a winter-active flea that infests mustelids. Known records are few and widely scattered. They no doubt occur in many other parts of Canada, but apparent rarity and gaps in distribution are probably the result of insufficient targeted collecting effort. There is also scant information on the seasonal dynamics and life histories of fleas, though there are some recent studies on important aspects of ecology and flea/host interactions (e.g.,
The Canadian fauna has been poorly characterised using DNA barcodes; there are only about 14% as many BINs as there are described species in Canada, most of which (18 of 22) are from Ceratophyllidae (Table
Taxon1 | Adjusted no. species reported in |
No. species currently known from Canada3 | No. BINs4available for Canadian species | Est. no. undescribed or unrecorded species in Canada | General distribution by ecozone5 and host range | Information sources |
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Superfamily Pulicoidea | ||||||
Pulicidae | 76 | 8 (3) | 1 | 2 | potentially all ecozones; wide variety of mammals and birds |
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Superfamily Vermipsylloidea | ||||||
Vermipsyllidae | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | Western Interior Basin, Boreal Plains, Mixedwood Plains, Pacific Maritime, Montane Cordillera, Prairies, Atlantic Maritime; mostly carnivores |
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Superfamily Hystrichopsylloidea | ||||||
Hystrichopsyllidae 8 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | all ecozones south of taiga; insectivores, small rodents |
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Ctenophthalmidae 8 | 50 | 519 | 3 | 3 | all except Arctic ecozones; insectivores, rodents |
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Superfamily Ceratophylloidea | ||||||
Ischnopsyllidae | 4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | transcontinental exclusive of Arctic and alpine areas; specific to bats |
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Leptopsyllidae | 14 | 14 (1) | 0 | 3 | all except Arctic; rodents, lagomorphs, birds |
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Ceratophyllidae | 67 | 67 (2) | 18 | 13 | all ecozones; mainly small mammals and birds |
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Total | 151 | 154 (6) | 22 | 23 |
Thanks to Wayne Knee and Owen Lonsdale for access to the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Arachnids, and Nematodes database for fleas, and to Jeremy deWaard for his assistance with the BINs for the table. I also thank the Department of Entomology and the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences for their continued support for research on ectoparasites.