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A new flesh fly species (Diptera: Sarcophagidae) parasitic on leptodactylid frogs

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Abstract

Here we describe a new species of sarcophagid fly reared from larvae found feeding on three species of leptodactylid frogs collected in subtropical Corrientes Province in northeastern Argentina. Our species description is based on adult male and female external morphology and genitalia. Adult males and females of the new species were associated with certainty because all specimens studied were reared from single clutches of larvae on each of three infested frogs. Thus, adult males and females reared from each clutch were siblings that emerged almost simultaneously. The paper provides line drawings, high-resolution photographs, and SEM images to aid in identifying Lepidodexia (Notochaeta) adelina sp. nov. and to distinguish the new species from its closely related congeners. We include brief notes on the host species and on larval feeding behavior of L. (N.) adelina. This is the first and only species in the genus Lepidodexia reported to parasitize leptodactylid frogs. Further, our observations reported here are the first to fully document a completed life cycle by sarcophagid fly larvae on three different species of leptodactylid frogs and the only well-documented case of myiasis of an amphibian in Argentina.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET, PIP 2015-0431) and National Agency for Scientific and Technological Promotion (ANPCyT, PICT 2012-0231). The authors wish to thank Fabian Tricarico (MACN) for providing support with SEM. Finally, we wish to thank Jenny Pohl, Sven Marotzke, and Bernhard Schurian from (Museum für Naturkunde Berlin Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung) for their kind support with the images of Lepidodexia fiebrigi. We are particularly grateful to Dr. Robert L. Smith Associate Professor Emeritus Department of Entomology at the University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Dr. Juan Schnack for revising the English of the manuscript and for their thorough review of this paper. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and improvements of this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia”, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Av. Angel Gallardo 470, C1405DJR, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Pablo Ricardo Mulieri

  2. Centro de Ecología Aplicada del Litoral “CECOAL—CONICET—UNNE”, Ruta 5, Km 2.5, 3400, Corrientes, Argentina

    Eduardo Federico Schaefer, Marta Inés Duré & Cynthya Elizabeth González

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  1. Pablo Ricardo Mulieri
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  2. Eduardo Federico Schaefer
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  3. Marta Inés Duré
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  4. Cynthya Elizabeth González
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Correspondence to Pablo Ricardo Mulieri.

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Mulieri, P.R., Schaefer, E.F., Duré, M.I. et al. A new flesh fly species (Diptera: Sarcophagidae) parasitic on leptodactylid frogs. Parasitol Res 117, 809–818 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-018-5755-4

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