Roger Price, Kevin Johnson and Bob Dalgleish have done me the honor of naming a second new louse species after me. This compliments Neopsittaconirmus vincesmithi (suborder Ischnocera), which was named after me late last year from Bourke's parrot (Neopsephotus bourkii).

The new species (Myrsidea vincesmithi) belongs to the suborder Amblycera and is a parasites of the Rufous-breasted Wren (Thryothorus rutilus) that was collected in Trinidad. The authors note about this species “While we generally are reluctant to describe a new species from only a single specimen, the differences are so marked in this case that we feel justified in doing so”. Alas, the louse is only known from the single male holotype specimen. All I need now is a elephant louse (suborder Rhynchophthirina) and a sucking louse (suborder Anoplura) and I’ll compete the set for the suborders of parasitic lice (Order Phthiraptera)! Unfortunately a new species of Rhynchophthirina is very unlikely - there are only three known species from elephants, warthogs and bush pigs!

Myrsidea vincesmithi was not illustrated in the paper describing this species, but I have put below a picture of its host, Thryothorus rutilus. The image is copyright Kent Nickell and is linked from Kent’s flickr page:

The full reference for the publication is:
Price, R.D., Johnson, K.P and Dalgleish, R.C. 2008. Myrsidea Waterston (Phthiraptera: Menoponidae) from wrens (Passeriformes: Troglodytidae), with descriptions of three new species. Zootaxa 1740: 59–65.

This paper is Open Access and is available to everybody from the link above.