A New Species of Geomydoecus (Mallophaga: Trichodectidae) from the Texas Pocket Gopher, Geomys personatus (Rodentia: Geomyidae)

Geomydoecus dalgleishi n. sp. is described and illustrated for material off Geomys personatus fuscus from southern Texas. Two species of Geomydoecus Ewing are currently recognized from the Texas pocket gopher, Geomys personatus True. Ewing (1936) described Geomydoecus texanus from Geomys personatus fallax Merriam collected at Flour Bluff, Corpus Christi Bay, [Nueces County], Texas. Davis (1940) subsequently described the pocket gophers from Flour Bluff and all of coast al Nueces and Kleberg counties as a new subspecies, Geomys personatus maritimus; hence, the type-host of Geomydoecus texanus should be Geo mys personatus maritimus rather than G. p. fallax. Price and Hellenthal (1975) separated G. texanus into two subspecies, G. t. texanus and G. t. tropicalis. They reported the nominate subspecies from three subspecies of pocket gophers, G. p. personatus, G. p. fallax, and G. p. megapotamus Davis, and found G. tropicalis only on the tropical pocket gopher, Geomys tropicalis Goldman, which previously had been recognized as a subspecies of G. personatus. The second species of Geomydoecus reported from the Texas pocket gopher is Geomydoecus truncatus (Werneck). Price and Emerson (1971) recorded G. truncatus only from Geomys personatus strecken Davis, a subspecies isolated from all other populations of Geomys. We recently obtained a series of Mallophaga from Geomys personatus fuscus Davis, the only subspecies of the Texas pocket gopher from which we previously had not seen lice. These lice were found to represent an undescribed species of Geomydoecus and it is our intent here to describe and illustrate this new species. In the following species description, the minimum and maximum values observed are given for measured or counted characters; the number of spec imens, mean, and standard deviation are enclosed within parentheses. All measurements are in millimeters. Character definitions may be found in Price and Hellenthal (1975). Received for publication 18 May 1978. VOLUME 52, NUMBER 2 265 Geomydoecus dalgleishi n. sp.