Biodiversity Data Journal :
Short Communication
|
Corresponding author: Áron Péter (aronpeter92@gmail.com)
Academic editor: Pierfilippo Cerretti
Received: 17 Aug 2020 | Accepted: 18 Dec 2020 | Published: 18 Jan 2021
© 2021 Áron Péter, Andrei Mihalca, Attila Sándor
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Péter Á, Mihalca AD, Sándor AD (2021) First report of the bat fly species Basilia italica in Romania. Biodiversity Data Journal 9: e57680. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.9.e57680
|
Bat flies are haematophagous ectoparasites, highly specialised to bats and are also considered to have vectorial potential for several pathogens like Bartonella spp. or Polychromophilus spp. In Romania, past studies mostly focused on the ectoparasitic fauna of cave-dwelling bats, listing the occurrence of 10 bat fly species in the country, with only scarce information on bat flies infesting crevice-roosting bat species. Here we report the occurrence of Basilia italica, a rare nycteribiid species infesting primarily forest-dwelling bats. This is the first country-record for Romania and also represents the easternmost occurrence of this species. Further studies are needed to evaluate the vectorial potential of B. italica.
Chiroptera, distribution, host-parasite relationships, Myotis mystacinus, Nycteribiidae
Bat flies (Diptera, Hippoboscoidea) are highly specialised ectoparasites of bats representing two families in the superfamily Hippoboscoidea (Streblidae and Nycteribiidae;
(Methods used for this study were published at protocols.io with the following DOI: dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.bi2ykgfw).
Bats were trapped using mist nets erected close to the roosting site of an all-male colony of multiple species in an abandoned building close to Ic Ponor (Munții Apuseni,
On both trapping occasions, a single bat fly individual was collected from a single adult male Myotis mystacinus. None of the other examined individuals (all males, Vespertilio murinus – 106, Pipistrellus pipistrellus – 17, M. mystacinus – 16 and M. brandtii - 2) hosted bat flies (Suppl. material
The main host of B. italica is M. mystacinus, with occasional records on M. alcathoe and M. brandtii (
The finds reported here are the first records of B. italica in Romania, hence increasing to 11 the number of known bat fly species in this country. This is a novel and a geographically-distant record, therefore considerably extending the range towards the East. (Fig.
Although bat flies are usually abundant on cave dwelling species (like Miniopterus schreibersii or M. myotis) and their flies are relatively well-known (
Hereby, we would like to acknowledge the help provided by numerous volunteers in the fieldwork throughout the last five years, with special thanks for the assistance of B. Sándor and E. Sándor in data collection in 2020. ÁP was supported by the Collegium Talentum programme of Hungary. ADS was the beneficiary of the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of Hungarian Academy of Science and the ÚNKP 19-4-ÁTE-10 New National Excellence Program of the MIT.
The NKFIH 132794 (National Research, Development and Innovation Office of Hungary) provided financial resources to ADS.
University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Bat capture permits were issued by the Underground Heritage Commission (Romania).
ÁP contribuited to the bat capture and sample collection, did the identification and wrote the early version of the manuscript.
ADM made the photos and corrected the manuscript.
SDA organised the field trip, revised and corrected the manuscript.
We (all authors) declare that there are no confllict of interest.
Collection data of the bat fly B. italica for the first time in Romania