mallophagan

plural mallophagans

1. A chewing louse, any louse of the now obsolete suborder Mallophaga, any true louse that is not a sucking louse.

   As a rule, mallophagans are host-specific, each species being restricted and adapted to a single bird species or groups of closely related bird species.

   1985, Olin Sewall Pettingill, Jr., Ornithology in Laboratory and Field, page 116

   2 more examples

   Most are associated with birds (although at least one hundred species deign to dine on mammalian body tissues); the majority of mallophagans on birds (and hence the majority of mallophagans in general) have a pair of well-developed claws on the tips of their tarsi.

   1993, May Berenbaum, Ninety-nine More Maggots, Mites, and Munchers, page 226

   While these mouthparts are not primarily designed to pierce skin some mallophagans do feed on blood. Menacanthus stramineus, a present-day mallophagan, feeds at the base of feathers or on the skin of the chicken.

   2005, M. J. Lehane, The Biology of Blood-Sucking in Insects, page 8