Abstract
Recently, populations of flies have increased in numbers given the elevated levels of organic matter waste produced by anthropic activities and domestication of animals. Such increase represents a worldwide health concern, since flies can be vectors of human diseases. The great variety of feeding and developmental habits of flies of the family Sarcophagidae taking place on animal corpses, feces and decomposed organic matter make them potential vectors of pathogens. Herein, we evaluated the synanthropic index (SI), as well as other ecological aspects of this family, through simultaneous monthly samplings in three areas with different degrees of human disturbance (urban, rural and forest). Each area had four van Someren Rydon traps, each one with a different bait (i.e., human feces, chicken viscera, fish and decomposing onion). Traps were active during 48 hours each month, and specimen collection was made every 12 hours. A total of 7 446 Sarcophagidae individuals were collected (1275 males and 6171 females), belonging to 27 species and nine genera. Tricharaea (Sarcophagula) canuta (Sl = +96.67), Oxysarcodexia taitensis (SI = +93.85), Peckia (Peckia) chrysostoma (SI = +90.00) and Tricharaea (Sarcophagula) occidua (SI = +88.76) exhibited the highest values of synanthropy index, revealing a strong preference for human settlements. The most abundant species were Oxysarcodexia conclausa (21.80%), Ravinia effrenata (18.67%), Oxysarcodexia bakeri (11.45%) and Oxysarcodexia taitensis (10.20%), all of which exhibited preference for urban environments. Additionally, we are reporting seven new records of Sarcophagid flies for Colombia: Oxysarcodexia angrensis, Oxysarcodexia bakeri, Oxysarcodexia diana, Oxysarcodexia similata, Oxysarcodexia timida, Peckia (Peckia) pexata and Titanogrypa (Cucullomyia) placida.
Highlights
The Sarcophagidae Hagen, 1881, are a family of Calyptratae flies present in all geographic regions of the world, from which nearly 2 600 species have been described
Oxysarcodexia and Peckia were the most diverse genera with 11 and six species respectively, Ravinia and Tricharaea with two species, and Argoravinia, Helicobia, Sarcodexia, Sarcofahrtiopsis and Titanogrypa were represented by only one species (Fig. 1)
With this study we have reported seven new records for Colombia, many of them previously recorded for other countries in the Neotropical and Neartic regions (Lopes 1975, Lopes & Tibana 1991, Pape 1996, Oliveira et al 2002, Pape et al 2004)
Summary
The Sarcophagidae Hagen, 1881, are a family of Calyptratae flies present in all geographic regions of the world, from which nearly 2 600 species have been described They are distributed in three subfamilies: Miltogramminae, Paramacronychiinae and Sarcophaginae (Pape 1996). Sarcophaginae have a wide variety of habits, some species being scavengers, coprophages, hosts of ant and termite nests, some cause myasis to amphibians and mammals, others are predators on arachnid eggs, butterfly larvae and bee pupae. They can even be highly specialized parasitoids in other arthropods (Pape et al 2004). Sarcophagidae are an important component of synanthropic fauna in South America, there are few works done under this perspective, which have been developed mainly in some regions of Brazil as Curitiba (Ferreira 1979), Campinas (Linhares 1981), Belo Horizonte (Dias et al 1984), Rio de Janeiro (D’Almeida 1984) and Goiânia
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