Tabanidae Latreille, 1802

Milan Chvála

Department of Zoology, Charles University Prague, CZ – 128 44 Praha 2, Czech Republic; mchvala@natur.cuni.cz

The family Tabanidae, the horse-flies, is a well-known group of haematophagous insects of great economic importance. Females of all the Central European species are blood-sucking flies, whereas the males are nectar feeders. Much of the taxonomy of the group and most of the important differential features are based only on the female sex. Females are dichoptic, with many good characters on the head (frontal calli), antenna and abdominal pattern; males are holoptic, and in general have less good differential features.

Altogether some 3500 species are known throughout the world. 166 species are recorded in Europe (Chvála 1980, Chvála et al. 1972), and 63 species are listed in the present checklist. The family was intensively studied during the second half of the last century in the former Czechoslovakia and many faunistic papers were published, culminating in the publication of two books (Chvála 1980, Chvála et al. 1972) with keys for identification. The excellent state of knowledge of this group is demonstrated by the fact that nothing new has been added since the last version of the checklist. Of the 63 listed species, 54 have been found in the Czech Republic (49 species in Bohemia and 48 in Moravia) and 56 in Slovakia.

References

[1] Chvála M. 1980: Tabanidae. In Chvála M. (ed.): Krevsající mouchy a střečci – Diptera. Fauna ČSSR sv. 22. Academia, Praha, pp. 282-390.

[2] Chvála M., Lyneborg L. & Moucha J. 1972: The Horse Flies of Europe (Diptera, Tabanidae). Entomological Society of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, 499 pp. + 8 Plates.