LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 590.5 FI V.39 cop. 3 ■iArURAL HISTORY, SURVEY I f7 3 FIELDIANA • ZOOLOGY Published by CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM Volume 39 September 22, 1958 No. 17 STREBLIDAE FROM YEMEN WITH DESCRIPTION OF ONE SUBSPECIES OF ASCODIPTERON (DIPTERA) B. JOBLING, F.R.E.S. Wellcome Laboratories op Tropical Medicine, London In 1951, the Director of the United States Naval Medical Re- search Unit No. 3, Cairo, Egypt, organized a Naval Medical Mission to the Yemen, and while there, the medical zoologist of the Mission, Mr. Harry Hoogstraal, made a collection of the ectoparasites of mammals. Among the specimens of this collection were 64 batflies (Streblidae), which he kindly submitted to me for study. Until comparatively recent time the fauna of the Streblidae of Arabia was completely unknown. The first specimen was found in Aden, on a broad-eared bat. It was described as Raymondia huheri setosa Jobling (1930) and later elevated to specific rank (Jobling, 1939). Recently this species has been found on Asellia tridens (Geoffroy), at Jaffa, Palestine, by Theodor and Moscona (1954). I rather suspect that the type specimen of this species was collected from the same host. In the British Museum (Natural History) there is another specimen of the genus Raymondia, from Aden. Although it is very badly distorted by pressure of the cover slip, its more or less discernible characters indicate its affinity with Raymondia semi- nuda Jobling (1954) . This species is common in the tropical parts of Africa, where its principal hosts are Hipposideros caffer caffer (Sun- devall) and other subspecies. This bat was unknown from Arabia until a single specimen was discovered by the British Museum (Nat- ural History) Expedition to southwest Arabia, in the western Aden (Hayman, 1937-38). Two other specimens have been found in Yemen, near San *a (Sanborn and Hoogstraal, 1953) . No Streblidae have been found on these three specimens of Hipposideros c. caffer, although in tropical Africa this bat is parasitized by seven species. This, however, does not exclude the presence of Streblidae on these ■ i Library of£anaress Ciwigg Cch-d Number: 58-133U7 No. 851 *-^'-''^ aA^Q 185 (^^7»';\^'^ ^.^ NATURAL <^^^^*^^^ HISTORY SUirVE- 186 FIELDIANA: ZOOLOGY, VOLUME 39 bats in Arabia. It is more likely that the above-mentioned speci- men of Raymondia seminuda was taken from this bat, because, as far as is known at present, none of the other species of bats that seminuda is known to parasitize has been found in Arabia. Including the record from Yemen, the Streblidae of Arabia con- sist of three species and one subspecies. Except Raymondia setosa, of which the zoogeographical position is not clear, they all belong to the Ethiopian fauna. Nycteribosca africana (Walker) Specimens examined. — Yemen: One specimen from Rhinolophus clivosus acrotis Heuglin, Ta'izz, altitude 4,100 ft., taken January 10, 1951 (field no. HH 6267) ; one specimen from the same host and local- ity, taken January 21, 1951 (field no. HH 6280-81) ; 28 specimens from Rhinolophus blasii Peters, Al *Asr (3 miles west of San'a), alti- tude 7,200 ft., taken February 17, 1951 (field no. HH 6453-6551). The distribution of this species extends from Cape of Good Hope to Sudan, and from British Somaliland to Sierra Leone, West Africa. As yet it has not been recorded from Abyssinia and Eritrea and has not been found in Lower Egypt, in spite of a very extensive collecting of these ectoparasites by Mr. Hoogstraal. Its record from Rhino- lophus hlasii is interesting, because this bat belongs to the fauna of the Mediterranean subregion of the Palaearctic and is parasitized by Nycteribosca kollari Frauenfeld, which does not occur in the Ethi- opian region. The taxonomically important characters of the specimens from Yemen and the different parts of Africa show some variation. These differences may seem significant, but they do not justify the separa- tion of this species into different subspecies, for the examination of the material reveals that all these characters intergrade; for instance, the postvertex, the seventh sternite, the ninth + tenth sternite and the tenth tergite of the female, and the genitalia of the male, which are very important taxonomically, have the same structure in some specimens from Yemen as in the specimens from Kenya and South Africa. Fig. 29. A, B, D-G, Ascodipteron africanum rhinolophi, new subspecies: A, antenna, frons, and latere vertex; B, mesonotum; D, anterior parts of thorax; E- G, cerci. C, Ascodipteron africanum africanum Jobling, anterior part of thorax and gena. a, antenna; cxl, fore-coxa;/, frons; g, gena; Iv, latero vertex; mes, mesopleuron; st, sternopleuron. ^90 . s /\jf^ /