Haematopota insidiatrix Austen (Diptera, Tabanidae) in Southern Rhodesia

Abstract

THE fly-round technique has long been used in tsetse fly studies^1,2. The procedure is to walk along a pre-determined route collecting those flies attracted to men, to bait-animals or to screens carried by men. Recent work in the Wankie National Park, Southern Rhodesia, has shown that this method is also effective for the study of Haematopota insidiatrix Austen. This insect is frequently a nuisance at Wankie, during the rainy season (November–February), because of its habit of following and entering motor-vehicles. It was because of this behaviour that the fly-round technique was tried as an aid to their study. A black cloth screen carried by two boys was found to be attractive to the flies. The use of a screen rather than a bait animal allows the technique to be standardized and also to be used in an essentially new way, namely, to study certain aspects of the sensory physiology of this insect.