Adrian Pont from Entomology spent two weeks on fieldwork in Armenia, 16-29 July. This was the second of three projected visits to Armenia, within the framework of the International Science and Technology Center project “Molecular genetic monitoring of blood-sucking flies (Diptera) as a basis for biological control of vectors of dangerous infectious diseases and precautions against the acts of biological terrorism”
The 2010 fieldwork was in June and the projected 2012 fieldwork will be in May. In this way, the seasonal succession from spring, summer and high summer will have been covered. Samples were collected at 52 sites. 14 of these were during day-trips out from Yerevan to localities previously investigated in 2010, such as Tsakhkadzor at over 2300 m and Lake Kari at nearly 3200 m. Adrian also spent a morning investigating the polluted River Hrazdan that runs through the centre of Yerevan. The other 40 sites were in the south-east of Armenia.
From 22 to 28 July inclusive, Adrian and his team drove to Meghri on the border with Iran and worked their way slowly back to Yerevan. His companions were a mosquito specialist and two blackfly specialists, and consequently the sites visited were sometimes in villages (for adult mosquitoes in cow sheds) but more usually on the banks of rivers and streams (for blackfly larvae and pupae). As it happened, the riverine habitats were the only ones to produce any Diptera as the open grassland was dry and baked in the summer sun. Day temperatures were in the upper 30s, and it was only at the high-altitude localities that Diptera were more abundant. Early morning and evening were the best times of day to collect Diptera.
Some 1350 specimens were collected and pinned. Over the next few months those on minutien pins will be mounted, and data labels will be printed and attached to all specimens, which will then be sorted to families. Adrian will continue sorting and identifying the Muscidae, and Michael Ackland will continue his work with the Anthomyiidae.
Among other families, there were few Brachycera and few Acalyptrates. Dolichopodidae were very abundant around the streams, but the season for Empididae was clearly over and very few specimens were found. Sarcophagidae were abundant, but there were few Calliphoridae and only a moderate number of Tachinidae. In the Muscidae, genera such as Thricops, Drymeia, Phaonia, Helina, Mydaea, Coenosia, were also notably scarce or absent. One species (undescribed) of Spilogona was common at Lake Kari. Lispe species and some Limnophora were present at almost all rivers and streams and, as in 2010, Lispe tentaculata was the most abundant and widespread predaceous species of Muscidae and was observed taking adult chironomid midges as prey.
In a paper in 2005 (Pont, A.C., Werner, D., and Kachvoryan, E.A., A preliminary list of the Fanniidae and Muscidae (Diptera) of Armenia, Zoology in the Middle East, 36: 73-86) Adrian noted that only 20 species of Muscidae had previously been recorded from Armenia. The list now stands at well over 100 species, and grows with each field trip.
This article was taken from Entom news - thanks to Adrian and Esther for content.