First report of phoresy on snipe flies (Diptera: Rhagionidae): the chewing louse Damalinia meyeri (Psocodea: Phthiraptera: Trichodectidae) on Symphoromyia immaculata

Abstract Phoresy, the passive transport of an organism by another, is a well-documented strategy among flightless arthropods, particularly in species that exploit patchily distributed resources. While phoresy among parasitic lice has been frequently recorded between avian-associated ischnoceran species riding on louse flies, reports of phoretic lice parasitic on mammals are exceedingly rare. Here, we report a case of phoresy of the chewing louse Damalinia (Cervicola) meyeri (Taschenberg) hitchhiking attached to the legs of the snipe fly Symphoromyia immaculata (Diptera: Ragionidae) (Meigen), collected while feeding on a human in central Italy. This represents the first case of phoresy on a rhagionid fly, increasing the known diversity of phoretic carriers of chewing lice.