Two friends and colleagues (Kevin Johnson and Roger Price) recently described and named a new parrot louse species in my honour. The louse (Neopsittaconirmus vincesmithi) was described in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington. This paper includes descriptions of two other species named after friends from the University of Utah (Sarah Bush and Dale Clayton). It is humbling to note that whatever I achieve for the rest of my career, my most enduring academic legacy may be this louse! My name (even if the species is subsequently synonymized) will be immortalized in the species description, along with the accompanying illustrations, specimens and metadata for perpetuity.

The citation for the paper is:
Price RD, Johnson KP (2007) THREE NEW SPECIES OF CHEWING LICE (PHTHIRAPTERA: ISCHNOCERA: PHILOPTERIDAE) FROM AUSTRALIAN PARROTS (PSITTACIFORMES: PSITTACIDAE). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington: Vol. 109, No. 3 pp. 513–521.

Regrettably Proc. Ent. Soc. Wash. is not an Open Access journal so very few people (including me, were it not for the fact that I was sent a reprint) will ever be able to read the description. Posted below is an illustration of the louse, into which have inset a public domain image of the host parrot:

The type host is the Bourke's parrot, a small parrot originating in Australia and the only species in its genus Neopsephotus. The louse is an ischnoceran belonging to the genus Neopsittaconirmus. This is an elongate slender genus commonly found amongst parrot wing feathers. Neopsittaconirmus vincesmithi is only known from the type host, and is readily distinguished from other members of the genus by reference to the male and female genitalia. Phylogenetically it is closely related to Neopsittaconirmus bushae, with the COI genes of the two species being about 10% divergent from each other – this is on par with other divergences between closely related louse species.