The CIE, issued twice
a year (no subscription costs
but donations to help with photocopying/mailing costs are welcomed),
was
begun in 1968 as a newsletter to facilitate communication between
workers
interested in Ceratopogonidae.
The format is
extremely flexible. Contributions
may be of any length and deal with any subject having some bearing on
the
study of ceratopogonids.
For
example, contributors may report their current interests or plans,
observations
or techniques of probable value to the readership,
requests for addresses,
study material or reprints, or any other matter of concern. The newsletter serves also as a bulletin for
planning
and communicating information on meetings, symposia, workshops and so
forth. Finally, there is in every issue a
compilation of recent
literature in the field.
Any
person(s) wishing to contribute to the newsletter or to receive future
issues
via e-mail should contact :
Dr. C. Steven
Murphree e-mail: murphrees@mail.belmont.edu
Department of Biology Phone:
615-460-6221
CIE Vol.
72
- December 2003
The Ceratopogonidae
Information Exchange Newsletter
Dear Ceratopogonid Colleagues,
I
would like to express
my thanks to those researchers who have submitted contributions for
this
issue of CIE. Thanks especially to
Art Borkent who has provided an obituary
including the
publications of our colleague, Antony Downes. I have received several notes,
updates and queries since
the May issue, some of which appear below. The
fact
that I can assist a colleague in the Cook islands by sending
images of a
blood-feeding Culicoides
adult to other colleagues around the world for identification and that
this
can be done within minutes
or hours still amazes me!
Currently, there are 117 CIE
subscribers who will receive this issue
as an e-mail attachment or hyperlink. An
additional
23 subscribers
still receive hard copies because I have no e-mail address
for them. Please continue send me the
titles of papers not cited in the Recent
Literature section.
Lastly, my university's
information technology staff
have yet to make the changes to which I referred in the May issue of CIE News.
This is still likely to occur and I will send the new link to the
CIE website to you via e-mail when this change is made.
Steve Murphree
1.
Ceratopogonid publications for sale. Send SAE to Dr. Eugene J. Gerberg,
phone (352) 373-7384 or e-mail at GENEJG2@aol.com
2. From
Adrian Pont (by way of
Art Borkent)
Here is
a little information
on Winnertz Cecidomyiidae
and Ceratopogonidae. Please forward
it on to anyone who may
be interested :
(a) In the Palaearctic Diptera
at
the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (which consists mostly
of
the Verrall-
Collin
Palaearctic Diptera),
back in 1998, I found a number of Cecidomyiidae
and Ceratopogonidae that appeared to
have
come from Winnertz, mounted dry on
characteristic
mounts and with identification labels such as pisi
mihi. Now
I
have just found a letter
from Osten Sacken
to Verrall, dated
"My sister
who
arrived from
the things I left behind me in 1856, when I went to
and Cecidomyiae, which he gave me and
which I had entirely forgotten. It will afford me a great
pleasure to offer them to
you, the first
time I have the good fortune to meet you. Most of them are well
preserved
and miracles of mounting."
This
offers some authentication
for the specimens in
examples can only be decided by a specialist.
(b) Whilst in
Zetterstedt's "Diptera Exotica"
collection, 10.20, drawer 12.
There are some 19 species of "Ceratopogon
exotica
a
Winnertz 1854", and some
54 species of "Cecidomyia a Winnertz 1854" plus 6 Lasioptera.
Many of these are labelled
as
Winnertz species.
Hoping
that this may be of
interest to someone ....Adrian Pont
e-mail: pont.muscidae@btinternet.com
3. Biting
Fly Workshop 2004.
The 2004 Biting Fly
Workshop (BFW) will be held 24-27 May, 2004 at
been a meeting for entomologists working on Ceratopogonidae
and Tabanidae but those working on other Diptera have also
been welcome. In 2003, for example, BFW
meet with
the North American Dipterist Society
(NADS).
In 2004 the meeting
will be at
Highway 319. The BFW met there in 1980
when it was
a private springs hotel and preserve. Now, it is a state park with an
unusual lodge with 27 rooms. Participants
should plan on arriving 24 May and departing 27 May.
Field trips
will range from
walks at Wakulla Springs to trips into the Apalachicola National Forest
just
west of Wakulla Springs or to Bristol, FL and the
Apalachicola Bluffs Natural
Area of the Nature Conservancy. Collecting
permits
will be applied for and contacts have been
made for those. If you are planning on
attending this
meeting, please contact:
Jim Cilek
J. A. Mulrennan Sr. Entomol.
Res. Lab.,
Participants must
make
their own reservations at the Wakulla Springs Lodge: 1-850-224-5950
(Janet
Hayes, Sales Mgr.;
mention “BFW-2004”). The rate is $75 per
day for the
room. A dining room is located at the
Lodge. The
Regional
(nearest location to Wakulla Springs; 45-60 minutes away) in
Hampton Inn
tel: 850-309-1300
Homewood Suites by
Hilton
((1-2 persons $99-129)
tel: 850-402-9400
LaQuinta
Inn Tallahassee South (1-2 persons $76-86)
tel: 850-878-5099
Websites with information about Wakulla Springs:
http://www.wakullacounty.com/wakulla-24.htm
http://www.wakullacounty.com/wakulla-5.htm
http://www.floridastateparks.org/wakullasprings/default.asp
http://www.abfla.com/parks/Wakulla/wakulla.html
Passing of
by Art Borkent
I regret to inform you that our
valued colleague J. Antony Downes, preceeded
in death by his wife Sheila, died in his
sleep on
Entomology
Unit. For 11 years he was the head of the Experimental Biology Section
of
the Entomology Research Institute in
Antony
Society
of Canada, received the Gold Medal Award of the Entomological Society
of
Canada, and was an Honorary Member of the
International Congresses of Dipterology.
knowledge of dipteran behaviour, ecology
and
evolution.
The
following is a list of his publications that, as far as I know,
includes
all those that concern Ceratopogonidae
(plus
a few extras
that do not).
Downes, J.A. 1950. Habits and life-cycle of Culicoides nubeculosus
Mg. Nature
166:510-511.
Downes, J.A. and D.S. Kettle. 1952. Descriptions
of three
species of Culicoides Latreille (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) new to science,
together with notes
on, and a revised key to the British species of the pulicaris
and obsoletus groups. Proceedings
of the Royal
Entomological Society of
Downes, J.A. 1955. Observations
on
the swarming flight and mating of Culicoides
(Diptera: Ceratopogonidae). Trans. R. Entomol.
Soc. Lond. 106:213‑236, pls. 1‑2.
Downes, J.A. 1962. What
is an arctic insect? Canadian
Entomologist 94:143-162.
Downes, J.A. 1965. Adaptations of insects in the arctic. Annual
Review of Entomology 10:257-274.
Downes, J.A. and D.H. Colless.
1967. Mouthparts of the biting and
blood-sucking type
in Tanyderidae and Chironomidae
(Diptera).
Nature 214:1355-1356.
Downes, J.A. 1968. Notes on the organs and processes of sperm-transfer in
the
lower Diptera.
Canadian Entomologist 100:608-617.
Downes, J.A. 1969. The swarming and mating flight of Diptera.
Annual Review of Entomology 14:271-298.
Downes, J.A. and S.M. Smith. 1969. New or
little known
feeding habits in Empididae (Diptera). Canadian Entomologist 101:404-408.
Downes, J.A. 1971. The
ecology of
blood-sucking Diptera: an evolutionary
perspective. pp. 232-258 In A.M. Fallis
(ed.) Ecology
and physiology of parasites: a symposium.
Downes, J.A. 1973. Biting
flies:
the necessity for a new systematics. pp. 115-123. In Biting fly control and
environmental
quality.
Proceedings of a symposium held at the
Downes, J.A. 1976. A new
species
of Brachypogon (Diptera:
Ceratopogonidae), the first record of the
genus
in
Entomologist
108:1145‑1151.
Downes, J.A. 1977. Evolution of feeding habits in Ceratopogonidae. Mosquito News 37:279-280.
Downes, J.A. 1977. Leptoconops
- Leptoconopidae? Mosquito News 37:277.
Downes, J.A. 1977. Distribution and differentiation in the subgenus Monoculicoides.
Mosquito News 37:279.
Downes, J.A. 1977. Evolution of feeding habits in Ceratopogonidae.
Mosquito News 37:279-280.
Downes, J.A. 1978. Feeding
and mating in the insectivorous Ceratopogoninae
(Diptera). Memoirs of the Entomological Society
of
Downes, J.A. 1978. The
Culicoides variipennis
complex: a necessary re-alignment of nomenclature (Diptera:
Ceratopogonidae).
Canadian Entomologist 110:63-69.
Downes, J.A. and W.W. Wirth. 1981.
28.
Ceratopogonidae. pp. 393‑421 in Manual
of Nearctic Diptera.
Volume 1. Agriculture
Canada
Downes, J.A. 1983. Two
weeks
on
the
Entomological Society of
Downes, J.A. 1988. The post‑glacial colonization of the north Atlantic
islands. Memoirs
of the Entomological Society
of
Canada
Downes, J.A. and D.H. Kavanaugh,
eds.. 1988. Origins
of
the North American insect fauna. Memoirs of the Entomological
Society of Canada
144, iii + 168 pp.
De Meillon,
B. and J.A. Downes. 1986. Subsaharan Ceratopogonidae
(Diptera). X. Report on species collected
in
the Drakensberg,
South Africa
|
|
New CIE Subscribers/Address Changes:
|
New Subscribers: Mgr. Andrea Tothova Department of
Zoology
and Ecology Faculty of
Science, Kotlarska 2, 611 37 e-mail: tothova@sci.muni.cz Dr. Franklin
S. Blanton
e-mail: MarTisDC@AOL.com Girish Maheshwari e-mail: girish_maheshwari@yahoo.com phone:
91-562-2155514 Cecilia Ramos Supervisora Tecnica Plan Piloto Control de Jejen Edificio BANFAA, Roatan, Isla de la Bahia e-mail: cesy_ramos@hotmail.com Wendy Brown
e-mail: wsbrown@frontier.net Gerald
McCormack |
Address Changes: Mr. Mark Breidenbaugh
e-mail: mark.breidenbaugh@youngstown.af.mil Phone: 330-609-1965 Fax: 330-609-1616 Michel Cornet Entomologiste 10, avenue Mireio F06100 NICE,
France e-mail: cornet.michel@wanadoo.fr phone: (33) 4
93
81 09 24 George Hendry
e-mail: g.hendry@btinternet.com Eva Veronesi
Arbovirology Group
e-mail: eva.veronesi@bbsrc.ac.uk Phone: +44
(0)1483
232441 Ext. 1158-1147 |
Shigeo Kitaoka
e-mail: hayato@kisnet.or.jp
Koyocho
1279-215
Kashiwazaki
I am interested in Forcipomyia species attaching to
butterfly
adults or larvae. I am hoping to receive
papers related
to
these
subjects from you by separate cover or e-mail.
Contributions
from
Ceratopogonid Scientists:
Maria Luiza Felippe Bauer e-mail: mlfbauer@ioc.fiocruz.br or mlfbauer@gene.dbbm.fiocruz.br
Instituto de Oswaldo
Cruz, Rio de Janerio, Brasil
I would like to
inform
you of my current ceratopogonid studies. I continue with the revision of the Neotropical genus
Downeshelea in collaboration with Gustavo Spinelli,
Art Borkent and Sebastiao
Jose de Oliveira. I am also working
on
the identification of Culicoides
from
the
known distribution of Culicoides paraensis in this country,
primarily
in the Amazonian Region. A manuscript
concerning
the distribution of Culicoides is now in preparation and one paper is in
press in Memorias do Instituto
Oswaldo
Cruz:
Felippe-Bauer, M.L.,
Culicoides of the paraensis Group (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae)
from the Amazonian Region of Peru. Memorias
do Instituto Oswaldo
Cruz
98. (in press)
Best regards and a
happy
New Year to all,
Maria Luiza Felippe Bauer
John Boorman
e-mail: midge@culicoides.freeserve.co.uk
I. Palearctic Culicoides
data sheets
Philip
Mellor and I are currently preparing a series of data sheets for the Palearctic Culicoides. The idea is to bring together
references and information
on each of the species, with (where available) of the wing and male
genitalia. They will include name,
reference, synonyms and references,
a list of all relevant references in the literature, and brief sections
of
diagnosis and notes,
biology, distribution and medical and veterinary importance, where
information
is available. They will typically be about
one
A4 sheet long. There will also be a list
of those sheets
available and full references to the literature.
The
intention is to make these freely available on the
first sixty sheets are being prepared to go on the website, but it may
be
a little while before they are ready; furthers batches and
updates and corrections will be added as appropriate.
If
all goes well it may be possible to include Afrotropical
species later.
For information as
to
the status of these sheets e-mail either Philip Mellor (philip.mellor@bbsrc.ac.uk )or myself.
II. New
Literature
With
best wishes to all my friends and colleagues for Christmas and the New
Year. Two notes which may be of
interest:
Boorman, J and J. Ismay. 2003. A species of Dasyhelea (Diptera:
Ceratopogonidae) new to
Monthly Magazine 139: 161-162.
Monthly Magazine 139: 163-166.
A. Marchi, E. Pili,
Dipartimento
di Biologia Sperimentale
Sezione di Genetica
In
the summer
of 2000 a first epidemic of bluetongue virus started in
A second outbreak took place in 2001. In both cases serotype 2 of BTV
was
responsible for the disease. In August of 2003 a
mild
epidemic of BTV (serotype 4, Istituto Zooprofilattico di Teramo-IZT) occurred in the same area.
From
2001 we have been
involved in a study on vector species of BTV in
the Centro Provinciale Anti-insetti
of
three selected farms on the East, West and South coast
starting March 2001. Collections were also done in about 50 other
localities
and more are presently being added.
Culicoides imicola is fairly common and widespread in the South part of the
island,
being found in more than 85% of the inspected
sites, and representing 30-35%
of all Culicoides identified. Major
densities
are along the coasts (> 2000 adults per catch). Adults
are mainly found
from July to November although a few adults are present during most
part
of the year. Differences in the period of
major appearance of adults were
found among the three selected farms and among years, as well as in the
number
of adults collected,
depending on latitude and climatic changes. Delayed
peaks of abundance are observed in the southernmost part of the island
(September-November).
Two other possible vectors
belonging
to the C. obsoletus and C. pulicaris groups were present in the
collections, representing however
only 8-16% and 0.5-1.5% respectively of all Culicoides.
While C. pulicaris was quite
sporadic throughout the year,
C .obsoletus
appears to be quite abundant
during the spring and early summer when C .imicola
is still at low density. Two species have been recognized
in this species
group based on male genitalia (C .obsoletus
and C. scoticus),
however identification is only based on a few males collected
in the traps. About another 20 species
have been preliminary identified.
Culicoides newsteadi
is the most frequent in the region (41% of
all Culicoides).
While
continuing
the survey, at present we are trying to genetically characterize the
vector
species using isozymes and molecular
markers.
Already we confirmed the presence of two species of the obsoletus group with only marginally
overlapping
periods of emergence, and the
presence of only one species of the pulicaris
group. C .imicola is also present
with only one species
and with extremely low genetic
variability, which could imply a recent colonization
of the island, with reduced or absent gene flow from mainland.
Dr. Annalisa Marchi (marchi@unica.it )
Art Borkent
e-mail: aborkent@jetstream.net
Salmon Arm,
The
following papers are
in press and hopefully will be appearing in the next 6 months. The paper on Austroconops
is 133 manuscript
pages long and includes a detailed study of the larvae
and pupae of this phylogenetically
important
genus. There are a number of plates
with SEM shots of the larvae, too. The
paper by Spinelli and Borkent
describing new species from
the Culicoides of
a table with all recorded pathogens and their ceratopogonid
vectors. The catalog
provides
a description of the distribution of all validly
named species and is basically
an undated version of Bill Wirth’s 1965 contribution to the Catalog of the Diptera
of America North of Mexico.
The paper by Ryszard Szadziewski
and
I is an outcome (in part) of our contribution to the Fauna Europaea project. The data on the
Ceratopogonidae is not yet online but will be soon at: http://www.faunaeur.org/PUBLIC/FAUNAPUBLIChome.html
. This project
provides a country by country distribution
of all species of European Ceratopogonidae
(and
other organisms).
My world catalog continues
to be updated. We now have 5507 validly
named species
on the planet(& there are more to come!
Gustavo
Spinelli, Bill Grogan and I are busy with
sorting
out the diverse community of Ceratopogonidae
in
working on a series of papers to describe new species
and, the previously unknown stages of previously described species. We eventually
hope to produce a large publication summarizing
what we know about the biting midges of the small but remarkable
diverse
country.
I am
also continuing my
work on the larvae and pupae of Ceratopogonidae
at the generic level (to provide keys and phylogenetic
interpretation), and (I say this in a small voice) finishing up a world
revision
of Corethrella, not a ceratopogonid but still a “biting midge”,
with female adults attracted by calling male frogs and feeding on their
blood.
Borkent, A. and D.A. Craig. Austroconops
Wirth and Lee, a Lower Cretaceous genus of biting midges yet living in
(Diptera:
Ceratopogonidae).
Spinelli, G.R. and A. Borkent. New Species of Central American
Culicoides Latreille
(Diptera: Ceratopogonidae)
with
a
Synopsis
of Species from
Borkent, A. Ceratopogonidae. In Biology of Disease Vectors, 2nd
edition. William C. Marquardt (ed.). Harcourt Academic
Press, Inc.,
Borkent, A. and W.L. Grogan. Catalog
of the
Myia.
Szadziewski, R. and A. Borkent. New synonyms, combinations and
records
of biting midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae).
Polskie Pismo Entomologiczne
Bill Grogan
e-mail:
wlgrogan@salisbury.edu