News Release

Majority of Anna's hummingbirds may have feather mites on their tail feathers

Tabletop scanning electron microscopy enabled analysis of P. huitzilopochtlii distribution in situ

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

Majority of Anna's Hummingbirds May Have Feather Mites On Their Tail Feathers

image: This is an Anna's Hummingbird. view more 

Credit: Dr. Manfred Kusch

The majority of Californian Anna's Hummingbirds appear to have P. huitzilopochtlii feather mites on their tail flight feathers, according to a study published February 14, 2018 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Youki Yamasaki from Washington State University, U.S., and colleagues.

Hummingbirds are known to host a diversity of feather mites, but this relationship is not well-understood. In particular, mite distribution in situ has not been previously studied. The authors of the present study examined 753 hummingbirds of five species from urban locations in California: Anna's, Allen's, Black-chinned, Calliope and Rufous Hummingbirds. They documented the presence of the feather mite Proctophyllodes huitzilopochtlii on tail flight feathers.

The researchers found that feather mites were present on the tail flight feathers of nearly 60 percent of Anna's hummingbirds, but less than 10 percent of the other species. Across all the species, the mite was more prevalent on the tail feathers of males (44.9 percent) than on those of females (36.2 percent), possibly because of the nesting habits of females.

The authors used tabletop scanning electron microscopy to analyze individual feathers, building a detailed 3D picture of the distribution of live mites in situ. They found that there tended to be more mites on the hummingbirds' outer tail feathers than inner, and saw that mites often nestled between the barbs of individual feathers, sometimes in high numbers.

The authors state that their study provides the first prevalence and distribution information for these feather mites on both Anna's and Black-chinned Hummingbirds. This is especially important given that Anna's Hummingbirds co-reside seasonally with other hummingbird species, with the potential for spread of mites.

Co-author Lisa Tell summarizes: "This study was exciting because not only were we able to document the presence of a mite on feathers from two species of hummingbirds found in California, but we were also able to examine the positioning of live feather mites in situ with electron microscopy that is portable enough to use in the field."

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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191323

Citation: Yamasaki YK, Graves EE, Houston RS, OConnor BM, Kysar PE, Straub MH, et al. (2018) Evaluation of Proctophyllodes huitzilopochtlii on feathers from Anna's (Calypte anna) and Black-chinned (Archilochus alexandri) Hummingbirds: Prevalence assessment and imaging analysis using light and tabletop scanning electron microscopy. PLoS ONE 13(2): e0191323. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0191323

Funding: This study was partially funded by donations from Dr. Grant Patrick (Tell) and the Hunter-Jelks Fund (Tell).

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.


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