New Canadian Black Flies (Diptera: Simuliidae).I

Abstract

The following descriptions of new species of black flies are based on material acquired from several sources in the Division of Entomology. The largest collections were made by field parties engaged in the Northern Insect Survey, a project commenced in 1947 and conducted by the Division in co-operation with the National Defence Research Board. Much of the simuliid material accumulated by this survey still remains to he examined and it will be several years before the valuable data on species distribution that it contains can be assembled into a form suitable for publication. Several collections of northern material have also been contributed by officers of the Household and Medical Entomology Unit. The rest of the material is the outcome of rnp own field studies in the Ottawa district, These studies, comnenced in 1949 and still continuing, are on a much smaller scale than the northern work and are designed chiefly to increase my knowledge of the group and to verify or supplement certain aspects of the work done by Twinn (1) in this area.

The structure of certain atypical Simuliidae (Diptera) in relation to evolution within the family, and the erection of a new genus for the Crozet Island black-fly

“…Rubtzov (1955) has since shown that Gymnopais is circumpolar in the north. Twinnia does not occur in the far north, but extends south of the sub-Arctic to such areas as New York State (Stone & Jamnback, 1955) and southern British Columbia (Shewell, 1960) in North America, and the Central European mountains in the Old World (Novak, 1957; D. M. Davies, 1961).…”

Polytene chromosomes of three species of blackflies in the Simulium pictipes group (Diptera: Simuliidae)

“…Since then this species has enjoyed an untroubled taxonomic history with only two synonyms recorded (Stone et al 1965). Shewell (1959) split the speCan. J. Zool.…”

“…2601, Australia. distribution of larval populations imposed by their restricted habitat of very swiftly flowing water at falls and gorges (Shewell 1959). Such a situation may be expected to present the opportunity for establishment of diverse polymorphism~, or even divergence and speciation, especially in isolated sites.…”

“…At the present time the situation remains as left by Shewell except that the name Hagenomyia is invalid, being a homonym (Shewell, personal communication). Shewell (1959) considered the S. pictipes group to be related to the subgenus L. Hemicnetha on the basis of adult thoracic markings, pupal respiratory filaments, and larval characters as well as marked habitat similarities. Simulium pictipes is distributed from the southern United States to southern Ontario and Quebec, while S. longistylatum occurs to the north with a zone of overlap in southern Ontario (Shewell 1959;Shewell, Peterson, and Wood, personal communication).…”

Black flies (Diptera: Simuliidae) from Hardwicke Island, British Columbia

“…Black flies (Diptera: Simuliidae) of British Columbia have been studied by several authors (Curtis 1954;Foxlee 1956;Hearle 1929Hearle , 1932Rothfels and Featherston 198 1 ;Shewell 1959). Williams et al (1980) reported nine species of black flies in vector incrimination studies on the blood parasites of blue grouse (Dendragopus obscurus) on Vancouver Island.…”