mallophagan

Noun

mallophagan (plural mallophagans)

1. A chewing louse, any louse of the now obsolete suborder Mallophaga, any true louse that is not a sucking louse.
   • As a rule, mallophagans are host-specific, each species being restricted and adapted to a single bird species or groups of closely related bird species.1985, Olin Sewall Pettingill, Jr., Ornithology in Laboratory and Field, page 116
   • Most are associated with birds (although at least one hundred species deign to dine on mammalian body tissues); the majority of mallophagans on birds (and hence the majority of mallophagans in general) have a pair of well-developed claws on the tips of their tarsi.1993, May Berenbaum, Ninety-nine More Maggots, Mites, and Munchers, page 226