Pterolichus dermicola Trouessart, 1886: 109; 1887: 923.
Epidermoptes bifurcatus var. dermicola, Trouessart and Neumann 1888: 144, tab. 2, fig. 4, 5.
Rivoltasia dermicola, Canestrini 1894: 828; Canestrini and Kramer 1899: 131; Oudemans 1909: 332; Vitzthum 1929: 97; Nordberg 1936: 54; Turk 1953: 85; Radford 1953: 216; Dubinin 1953: 102, fig. 22.
Passeroptes (Passeroptes) dermicola, Fain 1964: 299; Fain 1965: 114, figs. 141–144; Fain and Bochkov 2003: 124, figs. 5–10.
Material examined. 5 males and 10 females ex Parus major Linnaeus (Passeriformes: Paridae), RUSSIA: Kaliningrad Province, Curonian spit, ornithological station “ Fringilla ”, 55 °09' 15 " N, 20 ° 51 ' 14 " E, 29 April 2012, coll. S.V. Mironov.
Hosts and distribution. This species was described and repeatedly recorded from Passer domesticus Linnaeus (Passeriformes: Passeridae) from France (Trouessart 1886, 1887; Trouessart & Neumann 1888), Italy (Canestrini 1894), the Netherlands (Oudemans 1909), Belgium (Fain 1965; Fain & Bochkov 2003), and Germany (Turk 1953). Dubinin (1953) reported this species in Russia (Vologda Province) from the same host and also from Passer montanus Linnaeus. Nordberg (1936) found this species on Turdus philomelos (Brehm) (Passeriformes: Turdidae) in Finland. Fain (1965) stressed that he found “numerous specimens identical or very close and not separable from Passeroptes dermicola ” on various passerine birds, both taken from the nature and imported by Antwerp Zoo. On birds collected from nature, this author has found this species on Euplectes orix nigrifrons (Boehm) (Ploceidae) in Central Africa, on Chalcomitra senegalensis (Linnaeus) (Passeriformes: Nectariniidae) and, Plocepasser superciliosus (Cretzschmar) (Passeridae) in Rwanda. On birds kept in Antwerp Zoo, Fain had reported this species from Cardinalis cardinalis (Passeriformes: Cardinalidae), Lamprotornis superbus Ruppell (Sturnidae), Passer luteus (Lichtenstein) (Passeridae), Leiothrix lutea (Scopoli) (Passeriformes: Leiothrichidae), Ploceus cucullatus (Muller), Ploceus luteolus (Lichtenstein) (Ploceidae), and Serinus canarius (Linnaeus) (Passeriformes: Fringillidae) (Fain (1965).
The wide geographic distribution and associations with various passerine hosts could be explained by its association with such a cosmopolitan species as Passer domesticus. Besides, this suggestion does not exclude the possibility that Passeroptes dermicola in the current taxonomic concept is a complex of closely related species.