A checklist and generic key to the Tabanidae (Diptera) of Peru with special reference to the Tambopata Reserved Zone, Madre de Dios
Revista Peruana de Entomología
1985
Journal Article
27
37-53
Reserva Nacional Tambopata Parque Nacional Bahuaja-Sonene checklist diversity Tabanidae Diptera flies large spatial scales distributions taxonomy Madre de Dios Bibliography
228 species of horseflies (Diptera: Tabanidae) have been recorded in Peru: 73 of these have been collected at the TRZ, which makes it the locality with more species reported so far than any other locality in the Neotropics and possibly in the world. It is even estimated that if further collecting is carried out, about another 25 species may be found. A similar site in Colombia yielded only 44 species in two years of intensive collection. In Panama there are a total of 165 known species, and in Colombia 210. In order to describe the distribution of the horseflies, three main regions were considered: (1) Pacific Coast, where small collections were made in Lima or towards the south, as far as Tacna; the few species recorded to the north of Lima were either relictic populations from the adjacent highlands or species of wide distribution; (2) Highlands, between 1500 and 4000 m above sea-level; the fauna here mainly comprised species of Scaptia, Scione and Dasybasis, collected principally in the south of Peru; and (3) Lowlands of the the east and foothills of mountains, mainly under 1500 m above sea-level, with extensive forest cover ranging from tropical to sub-tropical. These collections reveal the predominance of an essentially Amazonian fauna. The species found in the east of Ecuador and in the north of Colombia up to Panama are generally absent, but many species found in Tambopata are also present as far as the Guyanas in the north and the mouth of the Amazon in the east. The work includes a list and a key for sub-families, tribes and genera of the horseflies known in Peru.