15. Laelaps multispinosus Banks, 1909

Laelaps multispinosus Banks, 1909: 136, pl. X, figs 5, 6.

Laelaps multispinosus . — Bregetova, 1953: 314; Lange, 1955: 338, figs 695, 705; Bregetova, 1956: 105, 112, figs 189, 218; Goncharova, 1956: 203; Lange, 1958: 206, pl. LXXIV, Z; Strandtmann & Wharton, 1958: 65; Tipton, 1960: 276, figs 25a, 26g, 29g, 31d, 32k, 33j, 40a,b, 41a; Goncharova & Buyakova, 1964: 281, figs 3, 4; Zemskaya, 1973: 140; Senotrusova, 1987: 158, figs 77–79; Goncharova et al., 1991: 35.

Laelaps parvanalis Willmann, 1952: 398, figs 3–5.

Liponyssus spiniger Ewing & Stower, 1915: 111, pl. IV, fig. 2.

Ondatralaelaps multispinosa . — Evans & Till, 1966: 147, figs 8, 9; Evans & Till, 1979: 236, fig. j.

Ondatralaelaps multispinosus . — Mašán & Fenďa, 2010: 59, figs 7, 15.

Type locality. Canada, Ontario, Guelph.

Type host. Ondatra zibethicus (Linnaeus, 1766) .

Principal host. The muskrat, Ondatra zibethicus (Zemskaya, 1973) .

Distribution. The native range of L. multispinosus lies in North America, but the species was probably introduced to Eurasia with its principal host, the muskrat. Now, L. multispinosus is widely distributed in the Palaearctic following the spread of its host. In Asiatic Russia, it is recorded from numerous localities throughout Siberia and the Russian Far East (Nikulina, 2004), which corresponds to the present Palaearctic range of the muskrat (Long, 2003).

Addition to the genus Laelaps: Lange (1955) described a new species of Laelaps—L. turkestanicus parasitising rats. This species has been recorded from the southern part of European Russia, Central Asia (Tajikistan), and the Far East, including China and Taiwan (Lange, 1955; Tipton, 1960; Wei et al., 2010). The type host, Rattus turkestanicus (Satunin, 1903) = R. pyctoris (Hodgson, 1845), occurs in the mountains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, but no reliable records of L. turkestanicus in Asiatic Russia are known.