Philoliche longirostris

Philoliche longirostris is a fly of the Tabanidae family that is found in India, Nepal[2] specifically the Himalayas.[3] It was first described and given a binomial name by Thomas Hardwicke in 1823.[4]

Philoliche longirostris
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Diptera
Family: Tabanidae
Subfamily: Pangoniinae
Tribe: Philolichini
Genus: Philoliche
Species:
P. longirostris
Binomial name
Philoliche longirostris
(Hardwicke, 1823)[1]
Synonyms

Description

P. longirostris is especially notable by its proboscis, which is "many times longer than its body".[3] Adults of the species in the Himalayas are said to emerge after the rains in July and are not seen after September. Their emergence matches the flowering of several species of Roscoea[5] and it has been suggested that they may have coevolved with Philoliche.[6]

Males and females feed on nectar using the long mouthparts formed by the prementum of the labium. Females, in addition, feed on blood using the mandibular and maxillary structures which are much shorter.[7]

References

  1. Hardwicke, T. (1823). "Description of Cermatia longicornis and of three new insects from Nepaul". Transactions of the Linnean Society of London. 14: 131–136, 1 pl. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
  2. Wood, John George (1874). Insects abroad: Being a popular account of foreign insects, their structure, habits, and transformations. Longmans, Green and Co. pp. 751–52.
  3. Allbutt, Thomas Clifford (1907). A System of medicine. Vol. 2. Macmillan. p. 178.
  4. Evenhuis, N.L. (1989). Catalog of the Diptera of the Australasian and Oceanian regions. Vol. 86. Apollo Books. p. 281. ISBN 978-0-930897-37-6.
  5. Sen, S.K. (1931). "Notes on the bionomics and anatomy of Corizoneura longirostris, Hardwicke". Indian Journal of Veterinary and Animal Husbandy. 1: 24–28.
  6. Paudel, Babu Ram; Shrestha, Mani; Dyer, Adrian G.; Zhu, Xing‐Fu; Abdusalam, Aysajan; Li, Qing‐Jun (2015). "Out of Africa: evidence of the obligate mutualism between long corolla tubed plant and long‐tongued fly in the Himalayas". Ecology and Evolution. 5 (22): 5240–5251. doi:10.1002/ece3.1784. ISSN 2045-7758. PMC 6102519. PMID 30151127.
  7. Karolyi, Florian; Colville, Jonathan F.; Handschuh, Stephan; Metscher, Brian D.; Krenn, Harald W. (2014). "One proboscis, two tasks: Adaptations to blood-feeding and nectar-extracting in long-proboscid horse flies (Tabanidae, Philoliche)". Arthropod Structure & Development. 43 (5): 403–413. doi:10.1016/j.asd.2014.07.003. PMC 4175409. PMID 25066540.
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