Throat dasseln

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Throat dasseln
Roe deer throat (Cephenemyia stimulator)

Roe deer throat ( Cephenemyia stimulator )

Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Subclass : Flying insects (Pterygota)
Superordinate : New winged wing (Neoptera)
Order : Fly (Diptera)
Family : Botflies (Oestridae)
Subfamily : Throat dasseln
Scientific name
Cephenemyiinae
Townsend , 1935

The throat dassels or horseflies (Cephenemyiinae) represent a subfamily of the botflies (Oestridae) within the two-winged flies ( Diptera). Like the other representatives of the botflies, the larvae of the animals live parasitically and mainly infest ungulates . In Central Europe there are five species of these animals that specialize in different deer .

features

The adult flies are medium-sized and mostly furry hair. The wings are very well developed and the animals are good fliers.

behavior

To find a partner, the males of the roe deer-throat fly in the Alps to the Gipfelbalz on mountain peaks and show clear territorial behavior there. This behavior has also been observed in other parasitic Diptera with low population densities in extreme habitats.

Reproduction

Roe deer-throat larvae in the throat of the host animal.

The mated females fly to their hosts like the nasal tassels after the larvae have developed completely. When they reach them, they fly in front of the animals' nostrils and shoot the larvae into the nostrils, while they follow every movement of the head in flight. Although the host sneezes several times as a defense reaction, several maggots remain in the nasal mucous membrane and migrate to the pharynx, where they grow very quickly after the hibernation. The maggots leave the host through the nostrils or (less often) through the anus and then drop to the ground, where they form pupae and remain until the finished fly hatches.

Harmful effect

The host specificity of the pharynx is sometimes very pronounced, a strong infestation, especially in deer, often leads to the death of the host animals. With red deer and elk , a fatal outcome of the infestation is rather rare. The reindeer dasseln in particular can be found in cattle and horses in northern Scandinavia due to the close proximity of the reindeer herds , and less often in humans.

Others

In 1927 the entomologist Charles HT Townsend reported in a scientific journal that he had observed a throat dassel of the species Cephenemyia pratti at an estimated speed of over 1200 km / h. Due to this misjudgment, throat dasseln were then considered to be the fastest living creatures ever observed; the error was propagated by the New York Times and listed in the Guinness Book of Records . It was not until 1938 that Irving Langmuir , Nobel Prize winner for chemistry , who at that time was increasingly occupied with other natural phenomena, refuted the fairy tale by means of a few simple considerations. Langmuir argued that an object of this size and speed could never have been observed by the eye, although a bang should have been audible when the sound barrier was breached. In addition, the insect would have had to eat 150% of its body weight per second in order to cover the energy required for such a flight speed.

Species (Central Europe)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Willi Hennig : Diptera (Zweiflügler). In: Handbook of Zoology. A natural history of the tribes of the animal kingdom. Delivery 20, De Gruyter, 1973, p. 42.
  2. ^ J. Ziegler: Let fly fly: Hilltopping of marked dipteras in the Alps. DGaaE message 17 (4), 2003.
  3. ↑ Townsend, C. 1927. On the Cephenemyia flight mechanism and the daylight-day circuit of the Earth by flight. J. New York Entomol. Soc. 35: 245-252.
  4. ↑ Plane Designers See 800-Mile-an-Hour Fly; Cephenemyia, Fastest Living Creature, Is Shown at the University of Rochester Museum.
  5. ↑ Irving Langmuir: THE SPEED OF THE DEER FLY . In: Science . 87, No. 2254, March 11, 1938, pp. 233-234. doi : 10.1126 / science.87.2254.233 .

literature