EXTINCTION IS THE NORMAL WAY THE THINGS GOING THE TSÉ-TSÉ IN COLORADO ARE THE HAMMER OF GOD FOR HORSES IN OLIGOCENIC NORTH AMERICA ? 2003 PAPER

to prove that the fossil Glossina of the Colorado. THE HORSE NEMESIS OF Oligocene were especially closely related to the modern fusca group 

NEW DISEASES ARE AFTER US ?

Nº DE DENTES CARIADOS NA ANTIGUIDADE DE 2 A 8 DENTES 

ACTUAL 24 DENTES....

BODY COUNT NEANDERTHAL 80% OF THE NON LIVING AT AGES BEFORE 32.....

100% ARE DEAD BEFORE THE 51TH BIRTHDAY.....

CROMAGNON 90% AT 50 YEARS ...ANGLO-SAXONS 81% DEAD BEFORE 41 YEARS

97.5% DEAD BEFORE 51.....



EXTINCTION  - THE HAMMER OF GOD IS UPON US ....

THE DISEASES TRANSMISSION BY TABANIDS: WHEN

THEY BEGAN? ARE THE TABANIDS REALLY GUILTY?

Several tabanid species in the extant fauna are vectors 

for disease-producing organisms that affect man and

animals. 

Bacteria, viruses, rickettsiae, Protozoa, and filarial worms can be transmitted by them, causing such

diseases as anthrax, tularemia, anaplasmosis, various

forms of trypanosomiasis, Q fever, and filariasis 

(Pechuman & Teskey 1981). 

However, if tabanids are directly guilty

for all these diseases, it is not consensual.

Tularemia was discovered in the United States, transmitted, as initially thought, by the tabanid Chysops discalis

Williston. Today we know that the true culprit is

an acarine, and this disease is not reported or is unknown

for Brazil (Martins 1940), although several Neotropical

tabanids have been found infected by similar acarines.

Rickettisiae, for example, was recently addressed (Gray

1998) but again, no proof of responsibility for tabanid-

associated diseases was directly demonstrated.

The Fossil Tabanids (Diptera Tabanidae): When They Began to

Appreciate Warm Blood and When They Began Transmit

Diseases?

Rafael Gioia Martins-Neto

Sociedade Brasileira de Paleoartropodologia, Universidade Guarulhos, Rua Arnaldo Vitaliano 150, apto 81, 14091-220

Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brasil

A discussion of the known fossil tabanids (Diptera Tabanidae) is presented based on fossil evidence. This

includes the origin of the hemathophagy in the Brachycera, more specifically for tabanids. Several tabanid species

in the extant fauna are vectors for disease-producing organisms that affect humans and animals. Bacteria, viruses,

rickettsiae, protozoa, and filarial worms can be transmitted by them, causing such diseases as anthrax, tularemia,

anaplasmosis, various forms of trypanosomiasis, Q fever, and filariasis. However, if tabanids are directly responsible

for all of these diseases is not consensual and the known fossil evidence is presented here.

Key words: Diptera - fossil Tabanidae - paleoparasitology - blood-suckers evolution - diseases in the past

The bloodsucking insects of the orthorraphous fami-

lies of Diptera are known from the Early Cretaceous and

include Psychodida, Corethrellidae, Culicidae (with some

doubts), Ceratopogonidae, Simuliidae, Rhagionidae, Ta-

banidae, and Athericidae (Ansorge 1994, Lukashevich &

Mostovski et al. 2001).

Although brachycerous flies are abundant in the fos-

sil record, with several families recorded (Apystomyiidae,

Archocyrtidae, Asilidae, Eremochaetidae, Hilarimorphidae,

Kovalevisargidae, Mythicomyiidae, Nemestridae,

Protapioceridae, Raghionempididae, Empididae,

Scenopinidae, Stratyomyidae, Therevidae, Vermileonidae,

Xylomyidae, and Xylophagidae), since the Middle Juras-

sic (Mostovski 1998), tabanids are relatively scarce in the

fossil record (mainly in Mesozoic).

The older record of a true tabanid came from the Up-

per Jurassic deposits of China (Ren 1998), with three gen-

era and three species, all related to the flower feeders,

Pangoniinae. The Cretaceous record comprises specimens

from the Lower Cretaceous of England (Coram et al. 1995)

and Spain (Lukashevich & Mostovski 2001), and a pos-

sible specimen in the Cretaceous of South Africa

(Mostovski 1998). For the Cenozoic, the following named

species are known: from the Miocene of Florissant, Colo-

rado, respectively named

Tabanus parahippi

Cockerell

1909,

Tabanus hipparionis

Cockerell 1909, and

Tabanus

merychippi

Cockerell 1917; from the North American Oli-

gocene,

Silvius merychippi

Melander 1947; from the Ger-

many Oligocene,

Tabanus statzi

Moucha 1972; from the

French Olicocene,

Aemodipsus bornensis

Maneval 1936

and

Chrysops seguyi

Piton 1940; from the Swittzerland

Oligocene,

Hexatoma oeningensis

(Herr 1864) Evenhuis

1994, and

Tabanus vectensis

Cockerell 1921, for the En-

gland Eocene/Oligocene. From the Baltic amber (Eocene/

Oligocene),

Stenotabanus brodzinskyi

Lane, Poinar &

Fairchild 1988 and

Stenotabanus woodruffi

Fairchild &

Lane 1989. Tabanidae were also found in Oligocene inclu-

sions from Chiapas, Mexico (Morales & Pimentel 2001).

For the Pliocene from Poland, Europe, North Africa and

Morocco the species

Tabanus sudeticus

Zeller 1842 was

recorded.

An unnamed species was assigned to the genus by

Grabenhorst 1985, for the German Pliocene. Scudder (1895)

recorded a possible new genus and species of tabanid

from the Miocene Oeningen deposits of Switzerland.

Undescribed Tabanidae have been noted from the Eocene

of the Green River Formation (Bradley 1931, Swanson &

Lewis 1993). The Cretaceous genus

Protabanus

, described by Hong (1982) has been shown by Grimaldi (1990)

and Zhang (1993) to belong to the order Homoptera, where

it has been placed in the cicadoid family Tettigarctidae by

Hamilton (1992) in his catalog of Mesozoic Homoptera

genera (see also Evenhuis 1994). The species of

Haematopota pinicola

Stuckenberg 1975) as from Baltic amber has been

shown by Lewis et al. (1977) to actually be a copal inclu-

sion from an unknown locality in Africa. An older unde-

termined compression fossil of Tabanidae from the Middle

Jurassic Mont-Saint-Marin deposit in Luxemburg was

noted by Maurice (1882). There are Cretaceous genera

described by Kovalev (1986) from Mongolia, but are

treated by Evenhuis (1994) as unplaced in Tabanoidea.

THE BRAZILIAN FOSSIL DIPTEROFAUNA

The presently known Brazilian dipterofauna came just

from three localities: Santana Formation (Lower Cretaceous,

Northeast Brazil), Tremembé Formation and Entre-Córregos Formation 

(both Oligocene, Southeast BraziL

 

 They include considerations of trophical

ecology such as: bacteriovore, algivore-omnivore-preda-

tor, fungivore, plant parasite, entomopathogen, inverte-

brate parasite, and vertebrate parasite. They concluded

that animal parasitism arose independently at least four

times, and plant parasitism three times. Strongylida is an

exclusively vertebrate parasite group, as well as

Ascaridina, Spirurida, Oxyurida, Rhabditidoidea,

Strongyloididade and Trichocephalida. Exclusively

entomopathogen are the groups heterorhabditids and

Steinemematidae. Exclusively invertebrate parasites are

the Rhigonematida and Mermithida. There is controversy

about the phylogenetic tree and the position of the clades,

and the relationships of the main clades and characters

used (Voronov et al. 1998). But, for the scope of this

paper, of all 55 branches of Blaxter et al. (1998), just two –

Rhigonematida and Mermithida – are exclusively inverte-

brate parasites. The former was represented in the fossil

record, parasiting insects, including tabanids, as briefly

documented below.

Voigt (1957) described an Eocene larval nematode en-

cysted in a muscle tissue of a beetle. Larsson (1978) dis-

cussed parasitic nematodes within chironomids from the

Baltic amber mermithids associated with dipterans, includ-

ing an adult limoniid fly and a female mosquito. Taylor

(1935) earlier summarized our knowledge of fossil nema-

todes, including a mermithid parasite within a German Baltic

amber Oligocene chironomid (see also Boucot 1990). Statz

(1944) presented mosquitoes and potential disease vec-

tors (Culicidae in mammals) from de Germany Oligocene.

Cockerell (1908) and Brues (1923) report

Glossina

(Muscidae) in beds of Oligocene age (fossils nematode trail..