Malaria in Fossilised Bat Flies encased in Amber - research Paper

Background

Both sexes of bat flies in the families Nycteribiidae and Streblidae (Diptera: Hippoboscoidea) reside in the hair or on the wing membranes of bats and feed on blood.

Members of the Nycteribiidae transmit bat malaria globally however extant streblids have never been implemented as vectors of bat malaria.

The present study shows that during the Tertiary, streblids also were vectors of bat malaria.

Results

A new haemospororidan, Vetufebrus ovatus, n. gen., n. sp., (Haemospororida: Plasmodiidae) is described from two oocysts attached to the midgut wall and sporozoites in salivary glands and ducts of a fossil bat fly (Diptera: Streblidae) in Dominican amber.

The new genus is characterised by ovoid oocysts, short, stubby sporozoites with rounded ends and its occurrence in a fossil streblid.

This is the first haemosporidian reported from a streblid bat fly and shows that representatives of the Hippoboscoidea were vectoring bat malaria in the New World by the mid-Tertiary.

Conclusions

This report is the first evidence of an extant or extinct streblid bat fly transmitting malaria.

Discovering a mid-tertiary malarial parasite in a fossil streblid that closely resembles members of a malarial genus found in nycteribiid bat flies today shows how little we know about the vector associations of streblids.

While no malaria parasites have been found in extant streblids, they probably occur and it is possible that streblids were the earliest lineage of flies that transmitted bat malaria to Chiroptera.

Vetufebrus ovatus n. gen., n. sp. (Haemospororida: Plasmodiidae) vectored by a streblid bat fly (Diptera: Streblidae) in Dominican amber