Comparison of chewing lice and feather mites as indicators of relationships in some birds suborders.

The fact that birds, being, hosts of related ectoparasites such as Mallophaga, are usually also related with each other, in other words that parasites can serve as indicators of the degree of relationship of hosts, has already been known to Nitzsch since the beginning 01 the last century ’and later repeatedly confirmed. On this basis the so called Fahrenholz or Nitzsch-Kellog rule has been formulated. Many papers in this respect have been published on Mallophaga because these parasites are a very suitable group for such phyletic conclusions due to permanent parasitization and consequently a close assotiation with their hosts. Another such group of permanent parasites are feather mites Analgoidea. The possibilities of using the data from their systematics and their distribution with hosts for various ornithophyletic conclusions were pointed out by Dubinin (1951, 1953, 1958). In my contribution I would like to show briefly things as they are with some bird groups and their relationship to other groups, taking into account the results of studies on Mallophaga on one hand and on feather mites on the other. As for Mallophaga, I have taken as a basis mainly the study of Clay (1957). It should be noted that opinions on the evidence of parasitological findings for ornithosystematics differ even with parasitologists. While Timmermann accepts it and draws his conclusions on the relationships between particular bird orders as well as between lower systematic units on the basis of mallophagological materials, Keler categorically rejects such a possibility. The group whose systematic position is not unanimously understood, are flamingoes Phoenicopteri. Most authors list them as suborder in Ciconiifortnes, but some others recognize their close relationship to Anseriformes. From the mallophagological aspect the situation is explicit. Phoenicopteri have 3 genera common or closely related to Anseriformes, but only one to other Ciconiiformes. Among feather mites parasitizing