This study describes the diversity of ectoparasitic bat flies (Diptera: Streblidae) in the state of Yucatan, Mexico. Fieldwork was carried out from June 2010 to January 2012 in seven municipalities of Yucatan, where 13 sampling sites were selected to capture bats using mist nets. Over 156 sampling nights a total of 910 bats were captured; these belonged to 19 species in four families: Mormoopidae, Phyllostomidae, Natalidae, and Vespertilionidae. Phyllostomidae was the richest family (13 bat species), followed by Mormoopidae (3 spp.), Vespertilionidae (2 spp.), and Natalidae (1 spp.). After careful inspection of the bats, a total of 2,134 Streblid bat flies were collected, belonging to 17 species in six genera (Nycterophilia coxata Ferris, N. natali Wenzel, Trichobius diphyllae Wenzel, T. dugesii Townsend, T. galei Wenzel, T. hirsutulus Bequaert, T. intermedius Peterson and Hurka, T. parasiticus Gervais, T. uniformis Curran, T. yunkeri Wenzel, Megistopoda aranea Coquillett, M. proxima Séguy, Aspidoptera delatorrei Wenzel, Strebla alvarezi Wenzel, S. diphyllae Wenzel, S. wiedemanni Kolenati, and Metelasmus pseudopterus Coquillett). The richest and most diverse genus was Trichobius. Five species—N. natali, T. diphyllae, M. proxima, A. delatorrei, and M. pseudopterus, are new records for Yucatan, and T. galei is a new record for the country, increasing the total number of Streblidae species for Mexico to 49.

Derived from an extensive survey on the common vampire bat Desmodus rotundus (Geoffroy, 1810) in some localities along the Central region, and the Pacific and Atlantic slopes of Mexico, Chirodiscid fur mites of the genus Alabidocarpus were found exclusively in the country's southern region in the state of Oaxaca, where they turned out to be a new species. Here, we describe the adults and juveniles of this new Chirodiscid species. The present study increases the number of species of Alabidocarpus associated with American bats to seven; therefore, we include an updated key to known species in the American continent.

Chagas disease is caused by Trypanosoma cruzi Chagas, a parasite with a life cycle involving hematophagous triatomines and vertebrate mammals as hosts. The parasite’s metapopulation is nested within its biological habitat patches, or hosts. In anthropogenic landscapes, the hierarchical arrangement of territorial units (locality, block, property) complicates the identification of an appropriate geographic patch size to assess parasite and host persistence. In this study, we evaluated local spatial co-occurrence patterns among Triatoma dimidiata (sensu lato) (Latreille), Didelphis virginiana Allen, and T. cruzi using 3 distinct patch sizes: (i) property area (x¯=3115 ± 1.01 m2), (ii) perceptual range of D. virginiana (x¯=16241 ± 5.29 m2), and (3) urban block area (x¯=36473 ± 4.89 m2) averages, replicated across 10 localities in Yucatán, Mexico. A total of 1,437 host individuals were sampled, with infection prevalence reaching 12% in triatomines and 50.1% in opossums. We delineated over 13,000 spatial patches for assessing parasite–host dynamics. Our results showed that block-sized patches had a higher density of hosts and stronger host–parasite interactions, resulting in increased parasite occupancy in a smaller number of patches. While interactions varied more across localities in these patches, most localities exhibited significant spatial autocorrelation in patches defined by the perceptual range of D. virginiana. Co-occurrence patterns were best captured at the urban block scale. Increasing patch size led to a higher probability of non-random spatial co-occurrence, indicating that geographic patch size is a key factor in understanding how the spatial ecology of its hosts affects the distribution and persistence of T. cruzi.