Illustrations of African blood-sucking flies other than mosquitoes and tsetse-flies / by Ernest Edward Austen.

  • Ernest Edward Austen
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Illustrations of African blood-sucking flies other than mosquitoes and tsetse-flies / by Ernest Edward Austen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Tabanus maculatissimus, Macquart. Memoir es de la Societe Roy ale des Sciences, de V Agriculture et des Arts de Lille, 1838, 2e partie, p. 125 (1838) : Dipteres Exotiques, T. I., lre Partie, p. 121, Pl. 17, fig. 2 (1838). Plate VI., fig. 46. So far as is known at present, Tabanus maculatissimus, Macq., is found from Cape Colony to the Nyasaland Protectorate and the Congo Free State, while T. maculatissimus irroratus, Surcouf, a form without orange hair at the extremity of the abdomen, and with larger brown blotches at the tips of the wings, occurs in French Congo. A glance at the figure will suffice to enable the reader to identify this species, which may be regarded as an offshoot of the group represented by the four species illustrated in the upper half of Plate VI., since, although the front tibiae are distinctly swollen, the ground-colour of the body is dark brown, the legs are pale instead of black, as is usually the case in the group referred to, and the wings instead of being banded are blotched or speckled with brown. The localities, etc., of the seven females representing the species in the National Collection are as follows.—“ S. Africa,” before 1844 (Dr. Andrew Smith). Cape Colony: Kaffraria, 1878 (F. P. Mansel Weale). Natal : Karkloof, February, 1897 (G. A. K. Marshall). Nyasaland Protectorate : Shire Highlands, February, 1905 (Dr. J. E. S. Old). Congo Free State : near Lualaba River, Katanga District, between 9° and 10° S. Lat., “ on buffalo ” [Bubalus caffer, Sparrm.] (Dr. A. Yale Massey). Tabanus pluto, Walker. List of the Specimens of Dipterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum, Part I., p. 153 (1848). Plate VI., fig. 47. The unusual appearance of this species, due to the presence of