Faculty of Development and Society, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK.
J Insect Sci. 2010;10:193. doi: 10.1673/031.010.19301.
Little is known of the life-history of many parasitic species. This hinders a full understanding of host-parasitic interactions. The common swift louse fly, Crataerina pallida Latreille (Diptera: Hippoboscidae), an obligate haematophagous parasite of the Common Swift, Apus apus Linnaeus 1758, is one such species. No detrimental effect of its parasitism upon the host has been found. This may be because too little is known about C. pallida ecology, and therefore detrimental effects are also unknown. This is a review of what is known about the life-history of this parasite, with the aim of promoting understanding of its ecology. New, previously unreported observations about C. pallida made from personal observations at a nesting swift colony are described. Unanswered questions are highlighted, which may aid understanding of this host-parasite system. C. pallida may prove a suitable model species for the study of other host-parasite relationships.
人们对许多寄生虫的生活史知之甚少。这阻碍了对宿主-寄生虫相互作用的全面理解。普通雨燕虱，Crataerina pallida Latreille（双翅目：皮蝇科），是普通雨燕 Apus apus Linnaeus 1758 的专性血食寄生虫，就是这样的一种寄生虫。尚未发现其寄生对宿主有任何不利影响。这可能是因为人们对 C. pallida 的生态学了解太少，因此也不知道其不利影响。这是对这种寄生虫生活史的综述，旨在促进对其生态学的理解。从在一个筑巢雨燕群的个人观察中所做的新的、以前未报道过的关于 C. pallida 的观察结果进行了描述。突出了未解决的问题，这可能有助于理解这种宿主-寄生虫系统。C. pallida 可能被证明是研究其他宿主-寄生虫关系的合适模型物种。
