Menopon spiniger Enderlein, 1909: 80, pl. 8: figs 4, 5.
Menopon (Menacanthus) spinigerum Neumann, 1912a: 364, fig. 12.
Heterodoxus armiferus Paine, 1912a: 362, figs A–D.
“ Heterodoxus longitarsus Werneck, 1936 ”: 492, figs 126–129. Not Menopon longitarsus Piaget, 1880. Heterodoxus spiniger (Enderlein, 1909); Plomley 1940: 19, pl. 3: figs A–J, pl. 4: figs A–B, D–K, pl. 5: figs A, C–G, pl. 6: figs B–C.
Heterodoxus spiniger (Enderlein, 1909); Werneck 1948: 21, figs 4–5.
Heterodoxus spiniger (Enderlein, 1909); Mustaffa-Babjee, 1969: 37.
Heterodoxus spiniger; Macadam et al. 1984: 37.
Heterodoxus spiniger (Enderlein, 1909); Price et al. 2003: 74.
Heterodoxus spiniger; Wells et al. 2012: 912.
Heterodoxus spiniger; Norhidayu et al. 2012: 301.
Type host: “House dog”, presumably Canis lupus familiaris Linnaeus, 1758 —Domestic dog.
Type locality: Kalahari Desert, Southern Africa.
Malaysian hosts: Canis lupus familiaris, Felis catus Linnaeus, 1758.
Malaysian localities: Kuala Nerang, Pendang (Kedah) Peninsular Malaysia (Tay et al. 2014); Georgetown (Pulau Pinang) Peninsular Malaysia (Norhidayu et al. 2012); Keningau, Kota Kinabalu, Penampang, Tambunan, Tamparuli, Tuaran & Ranau (Sabah) Malaysian Borneo (Wells et al. 2012); Samarahan (Sarawak) Malaysian Borneo (Ahmad 2013); Ampang (Selangor) Peninsular Malaysia (Tay et al. 2014); “West Malaysia ”, Peninsular Malaysia (Mustaffa-Babjee 1969).
Geographical distribution: Worldwide except Europe, New Zealand and Antarctica; more prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions.
Remarks: Heterodoxus spiniger is a species from an Australian marsupial (Kéler 1971), which has widely transferred to dogs, other canids and civets (Price & Graham 1997; Price et al. 2003; Durden 2019). However, a number of studies in Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia have reported infestations of this louse species on domestic cats (Colless 1959; Norhidayu et al. 2012; Mohd-Zain et al. 2013). Colless (1959) concluded that the transmission of H. spiniger to cats was a result of their close contact with dogs, but not due to change of host preference or host adaptation. This statement was further supported by Norhidayu et al. (2012), commenting that the long time gap between their discovery and Colless’s (1959) report implied that it was a rare occurrence. However, Price & Graham (1997) argued that the infestation of H. spiniger on cats was well-established instead of accidental.
Heterodoxus spiniger is known as the intermediate host of several helminthes, most notably the double-pored tapeworm Dipylidium caninum (Linnaeus, 1758) (see Norhidayu et al. 2012), and the filarial nematode Acanthocheilonema reconditum (Grassi, 1889) (see Nelson 1962), although the latter is not known to injure its canine hosts seriously (Price & Graham 1997). Mokhtar et al. (2011) reported Bartonella henselae (Regnery et al., 1992) from H. spiniger using PCR assays. Conversely, Tay et al. (2014) detected no rickettsial pathogens from field collected H. spiniger in multiple locations in Peninsular Malaysia.