Tabanidae of the Samoan Islands

Abstract

So far no species of this family of Diptera have been described or recorded from the Samoan Islands. The acquisition of a species of Tabanus by Dr. P. A. Buxton and Mr. G. H. E. Hopkins is therefore of great interest.The Tabanidae of the Pacific Islands undoubtedly form an eastward extension of the family from Papua through Melanesia to Fiji ; various species are known from the Solomons, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, the Loyalties and Fiji, but the family is unrecorded from Tonga or islands to the eastward of Samoa. The Tabanidae thus represent a Papuo-Melanesian element in the Polynesian fauna. It might be mentioned here that two species of Tabanus, T. sidneyensis and T. nigriventris, were described by Macquart from “ Sidney Island,” which has been supposed to be Sidney Island in the Phoenix group. This locality is certainly erroneous ; most of the Diptera described as coming from there are known now to be common Australian forms and these two species are in all probability also Australian. The only other species recorded from Polynesia proper is T. insularis, Walker, described from the Sandwich Islands ; this record is also certainly wrong, since the group is not known to occur in these islands, of which the fauna has been extensively collected.