Gyrostigma rhinocerontis
| Gyrostigma rhinocerontis | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Gyrostigma rhinocerontis | ||||||||||||
| [Owen] , 1830 |
Gyrostigma rhinocerontis (also sometimes referred to as in German media rhino warble fly hereinafter) with a wingspan of about 60 millimeters, the largest African fly species and a parasite of Spitzmaulnashorn rhinoceros and the square-lipped rhinoceros .
distribution
Because the fly depends on the African two-horned rhinoceros for reproduction, their numbers have also decreased as the rhino population declined. In the past, rhinos and thus the rhinoceros dassel fly were widespread throughout Africa , apart from the Congo Basin . Today they are restricted to savannahs in southern and eastern Africa.
Taxonomy
The fly was first described as Oestrus rhinocerontis by the English naturalist Sir Richard Owen in 1830 . This description was based on larvae from a rhinoceros stomach. Another, detailed description was made in the middle of the 20th century by Fritz Zumpt . Although the species has long been known, relatively little knowledge is available about its way of life as it is difficult to observe in the wild and also difficult to breed in captivity. Only a few larger museums can present specimens of this type of insect.
Life cycle
Like other bot flies , the adult animal lays the eggs on the host animal , in this case on the rhinoceros head. The eggs are elongated and white. The larvae hatch after about six days and are 0.25 cm long. These get into the animal's stomach and are stored in the gastric mucosa. They appear dark red in the primary stage. In the secondary stage, the larvae are about 2 cm long and pale pink and in their final stage the larva becomes the size of an adult animal and is whitish to yellow with brown spots.
Is now the larva to pupate willing to leave their host animal through the anus into a dung heap, burrows into the ground and then pupate. After six weeks it hatches as an adult fly.
description
The flies reach a length of 4 cm and a wingspan of 6 to 7 cm and resemble a black wasp with orange-red legs and an equally colored head. The wings are brown to black. The mouth area is rudimentary. The adult fly probably does not eat anything and lives for about three to five days.
Web links
- Benoit Gilles: Gyrostigma Rhinocerontis: His larva lives in the rhino's stomach , on the Passion Entomologie website (English, with photos of Imago and third instar)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Neal L. Evenhuis . 2012. Sir Richard Owen's fly, Gyrostigma rhinocerontis (Diptera: Oestridae): correction of the authorship and date, with a list of animal names newly proposed by Owen in his little-known 1830 catalog . Zootaxa 3501: 74-82.
- ↑ a b David A. Barraclough. 2006. Bushels of Bots. Africa's largest fly is getting a reprieve from extinction . In Natural History , June 2006, pp. 18-21, digitized .
- ↑ Joachim Budde: Series "Fly and Die" - The fly from the rhino's stomach. Deutschlandfunk, August 12, 2019, accessed on September 13, 2019 (German).