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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    Walk.,—Plate IV., fig. 25), from the vicinity of Mpimbi, Upper Shire River, 20 miles west of Zomba, Nyasaland Protectorate, taken by a native in May, 1905, and presented by Major F. B. Pearce, C.M.G., were labelled :—“ In large numbers, following the nswala antelope 55 \Aepyceros melampus]. Dr. J. E. S. Old, who on another occasion was himself attacked by P. oldii, wrote that it “ makes a loud humming noise, resembling that of a large bee, and on alighting immediately thrusts its long proboscis through the skin.” In a recently published paper Dr. Old stated that “ Pangonia hovers for a few seconds, alights, and then deliberately punctures, like a needle, with its extraordinary proboscis.”* As to native African names of Pangonia, in the Nyasaland Protectorate, according to Dr. Old, specimens belonging to the genus are apparently known to the Angoni as “ Chimbu,” to the Ankondi as “ Mbwari,” and to the Ahenga as “ Nimbu.” So far as can be ascertained, no observations Life-history, have yet been made as to the life-history of any species of Pangonia. Although in parts of the Anglo-Egyptian Pangonia Sudan, such as the Red Sea Province, Pangonia and Disease, magrettii, Bezzi, and P. riippellii, Jaenn., are said to be connected by natives with sickness and mortality among cattle and camels, while on one occasion in New Caledonia a species of this genus is stated to have been concerned, with Stomoxys calcitrans, in the dissemination of an epidemic of anthrax, it has not yet been proved or even seriously suggested that any species of Pangonia is the regular transmitter of any micro-organism pathogenic to animals or man. * Cf. J. E. S. Old, M.D.Brux., “ Contribution to the Study of Trypanosomiasis and to the Geographical Distribution of Some of the Blood-Sucking Insects, Etc.” : Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Vol. XII., No. 2, p. 20 (January 15 1909).