A revised annotated checklist of louse flies (Diptera, Hippoboscidae) from Slovakia

Abstract

The list of all known locality and host records from the literature on louse flies from Slovakia are summarized, with the addition of new collection data. New locality data are provided for five species. Three species are added to the Slovakian list: Icostaminor (Bigot in Thomson, 1858), which was erroneously cited for Moravia instead of Slovakia in the previous checklist, and Ornithophilametallica (Schiner, 1864) and Ornithomyachloropus (Bergroth, 1901), which were overlooked from the last checklist. As a result, the louse fly fauna of Slovakia increases to 19 species: 12 autochtonous species and seven rare, non-native species only occasionally imported to Slovakia or migrating to the country with their hosts. This is by far the largest regional fauna of Hippoboscidae in Central Europe, and matches the richest southern European faunas. In total, 78 host-parasite associations concerning 46 bird-host species from eight orders and nine species of mammals, including humans, have been found from a literature review in Slovakia. Two host-parasite associations are reported from Slovakia for the first time: Ornithomyaavicularia (Linnaeus, 1758) on Prunellamodularis (Linnaeus, 1758) (Aves: Prunellidae) and Lipoptenafortisetosa Maa, 1965 on Homosapiens Linnaeus, 1758 (Mammalia: Hominidae).

The northernmost record of a blood-sucking ectoparasite, Lipoptena fortisetosa Maa (Diptera: Hippoboscidae), in Estonia

“…In Europe, L. fortisetosa has been observed to attack deer, cattle, goats, sheep and dogs, but also humans (Metelitsa and Veselkin 1989, Büttiker 1994, Schedl 2018, Mihalca et al 2019). In Estonia, this species has often been observed to attack humans, which corroborates recent data from Slovakia (Oboňa et al 2019). L. fortisetosa is thought to be a multivoltine species in Europe, with adults appearing from June to October, while the adults of sympatric but univoltine L. cervi are present from August to October (Kowal et al 2016).…”

“…However, one L. fortisetosa specimen was collected in late August and another one in late September. In Central Europe, there are records of L. fortisetosa from September and October, which means that some adults of this species are active simultaneously with L. cervi (Büttiker 1994, Oboňa et al 2019).…”

“…A dot on the map can represent several nearby records. The source references are: 1 – Germany (Schumann and Messner 1993, GBIF 2019), 2 – Switzerland (Büttiker 1994), 3 – Italy (Andreani et al 2019), 4 – Poland (Borowiec and Zatwarnicki 1989, Kowal et al 2009), 5 – Czech Republic (Theodor 1967, Sychra 2009), 6 – Slovak Republic (Oboňa et al 2019), 7 – Austria (Schedl 2017, Schedl 2018), 8 – Romania (Pârvu 2005, Mihalca et al 2019), 9 – Moldova (Metelitsa and Veselkin 1989), 10 – Lithuania (Dumčius and Pakalniškis 2005), 11 – Belarus (Ostrovsky 2017), 12 – Moscow district in Russia (Grunin 1970), 13 – Estonia (original data: letters correspond to the collecting localities in the Material section).…”

Molecular characterization of Lipoptena cervi from environmental samples collected in Poland

“…In the future, efforts should be made to differentiate between L. cervi and L. fortisetosa, and to explore potential hybridization between these two closely related species. Due to the apparent physiological similarities and similar activity patterns of L. cervi and L. fortisetosa ( Oboňa et al, 2019 ) incorrect identification could produce misleading results in future research.…”

Asia and Europe: So Distant So Close? The Case of Lipoptena fortisetosa in Italy

“…The range of L. fortisetosa has expanded in the southern part of Europe, including Italy, where it has very recently been reported [ 27 , 28 ]. In Europe, L. fortisetosa attacks mainly deer [ 29 , 30 ], and occasionally cattle [ 31 ], goats, sheep [ 29 , 30 ], dogs [ 32 , 33 ], and humans, as reported in Germany [ 34 ], Estonia [ 26 ], and Slovakia [ 35 ]. Lipoptena fortisetosa has been found to mechanically carry pathogens, i.e., Coxiella -like bacteria (CLB), Theileria luwenshuni , and Theileria ovis [ 36 ].…”