This document reports a new case of myiasis (parasitism by fly larvae) in Pristimantis thectopternus frogs from Colombia. Researchers found a gravid female P. thectopternus frog with a lesion containing nine third-instar larvae of the Sarcophagidae fly family. This represents the first record of Sarcophagid myiasis in this frog species. While the larvae could only be identified to family level, the case adds to evidence that Sarcophagid flies are known parasites of various frog species across Central and South America.
This document reports a new case of myiasis (parasitism by fly larvae) in Pristimantis thectopternus frogs from Colombia. Researchers found a gravid female P. thectopternus frog with a lesion containing nine third-instar larvae of the Sarcophagidae fly family. This represents the first record of Sarcophagid myiasis in this frog species. While the larvae could only be identified to family level, the case adds to evidence that Sarcophagid flies are known parasites of various frog species across Central and South America.
This document reports a new case of myiasis (parasitism by fly larvae) in Pristimantis thectopternus frogs from Colombia. Researchers found a gravid female P. thectopternus frog with a lesion containing nine third-instar larvae of the Sarcophagidae fly family. This represents the first record of Sarcophagid myiasis in this frog species. While the larvae could only be identified to family level, the case adds to evidence that Sarcophagid flies are known parasites of various frog species across Central and South America.
This document reports a new case of myiasis (parasitism by fly larvae) in Pristimantis thectopternus frogs from Colombia. Researchers found a gravid female P. thectopternus frog with a lesion containing nine third-instar larvae of the Sarcophagidae fly family. This represents the first record of Sarcophagid myiasis in this frog species. While the larvae could only be identified to family level, the case adds to evidence that Sarcophagid flies are known parasites of various frog species across Central and South America.
Parasitism of adult frogs and toads by dipteran larvae
has been described in the families Sarcophagidae,
Calliphoridae and Chloropidae (Crump and Pounds, 1985; Kraus, 2007), but remains a poorly studied subject of amphibian biology (Hagman et al., 2005). In the Neotropics, only Sarcophagidae is known to cause myiasis in anurans (Travers and Townsend, 2010) including twelve species (seven anuran families) from Panama, Brazil, Peru, Costa Rica and Venezuela (Table 1). Here, we report a new record of myiasis caused by Sarcophagidae in Pristimantis thectopternus (Lynch, 1975) from Colombia. La Patasola Natural Reserve is located in the Salento municipality (Quindo), on the western slope of the Central Andes of Colombia (044133.2N, 0753312,8W; between 2200 and 2400 m). On October 14 th 2007 we found an apparently healthy adult Pristimantis thectopternus, which was kept in a plastic bag with humid leaf litter for six hours. After that time, a lesion on the right fank appeared (Fig. 1) containing nine larvae, which were preserved in 70% ethanol for later determination. The frog was fxed in 10% formalin solution, preserved in 70% ethanol and deposited in the amphibian laboratory of the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales (ICN 55452), Universidad Nacional de Colombia. The collected larvae were identifed as third instar Sarcophagid (Fig. 2), but a lower taxonomic identifcation was not possible because rearing the larvae is necessary in order to obtain adult fies for species identifcation (Mello-Patiu and Luna-Dias, 2010). After dissecting the frog we determined that it was a gravid female. The frogs abdominal musculature was partially eaten but there appeared to be no signs of damage to the visceral organs. Crump and Pounds (1985) found that females of Atelopus varius were signifcantly more parasitized than males, probably as a consequence of fat bodies and eggs which could represent a higher energy source for the fy larva. Nevertheless, both fat bodies and eggs of the P. thectopternus showed no sign damage by the larvae. Myiasis causing fies are diurnal (Hagman et al., 2005) which forces a temporal overlap with its hosts. Although frogs of the family Strabomantidae are nocturnal and remain hidden in the leaf litter during the day (Lynch, 1999), P. thectopternus is easily seen during the day, which could facilitate parasitism in this species. Acknowledgments. The authors thank Marta Wolff and John D. Lynch for corroborating larvae and frog identifcation, respectively. To Richard Speare, Roberto Eizemberg, Ctia Antunes de Mello and Jos A. Langone for supplying bibliography. To Paul D. Gutirrez, Catalina Gutirrez, Margarita Lpez and an anonymous reviewer for their valuable comments and inputs for improvement of the manuscript. Herpetology Notes, volume 5: 27-29 (2012) (published online on 27 January 2012) Flesh fy myiasis (Diptera: Sarcophagidae) in Pristimantis thectopternus (Anura: Strabomantidae) from Colombia Diego A. Gmez-Hoyos 1 *, Tatiana Surez-Joaqui 2 and Oscar H. Marn-Gmez 3 1 Wildlife Conservation Society, Colombia Program, Carrera 25 No. 4-39, Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia; email: dagomezh@uqvirtual.edu.co 2 Grupo de Herpetologa (GHUQ), Centro de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Biotecnologa, Universidad del Quindo, Carrera 15 Calle 12 Norte, Armenia, Quindo, Colombia. 3 Grupo de Investigacin BIOEDUQ, Universidad del Quindo, Carrera 15 Calle 12 Norte, Armenia, Quindo, Colombia. *Corresponding author Figure 1. Right lateral lesion in P. thectopternus caused by sarcophagid larvae. Diego A. Gmez-Hoyos et al. 28 Anuran Family Species Sarcophagid Country References Centrolenidae Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni Undetermined Panama Medina et al. (2009) Dendrobatidae Ameerega bassleri Undetermined Peru Hagman et al. (2005) Ameerega cainarachi Undetermined Peru Hagman et al. (2005) Ameerega trivittata Sarcodexia lambens Peru Hagman et al. (2005) Hylidae Hypsiboas beckeri Lepidodexia centenaria Brazil Mello-Patiu and Luna-Dias (2010) Aplastodiscus arildae Lepidodexia bufonivora Brazil Eizemberg et al. (2008) Bufonidae Atelopus varius Lepidodexia bufonivora Costa Rica Crump and Pounds (1985), Pounds and Crump (1987) Rhinella granulosa Lepidodexia bufonivora Venezuela Lopes and Vogelsang (1953) Rhinella margaritifera Undetermined Brazil Carvalho-Filho et al. (2010) Ranidae Lithobates catesbeianus Lepidodexia sp. Brazil Souza et al. (1989) Cycloramphidae Proceratophrys sp. Lepidodexia sp. Brazil Lopes (1981) Strabomantidae Eleutherodactylus sp. Lepidodexia sp. Panama Dodge (1968) Pristimantis thectopternus Undetermined Colombia Current study
Table 1. Known instances of Sarcophagid parasitism in Neotropical Anurans. Figure 2. Sarcophagid larva removed from the frog P. thectopternus. A. detail of anterior region (ventral view); B. detail of anterior spiracle (lateral view); C. detail of spines (ventro-lateral view); D. detail of posterior spiracle; E. ventral view to sarcophagid larva. Flesh fy myasis in Pristimantis thectopternus 29 References Carvalho-Filho, F.D.S., Gomes, J.O., Maciel, A.O., Sturaro, M.J., Silva, K.R.A. (2010): Rhinella margaritifera (NCN). Parasites. Herp. Rev. 41: 479-478. Crump, M.L., Pounds, J.A. (1985): Lethal parasitism of an apo- sematic anuran (Atelopus varius) by Notochaeta bufonivora (Diptera: Sarcophagidae). J. Parasitol. 71: 588-591. Dodge, H.R. (1968): The Sarcophagidae of Barro Colorado Is- land, Panama (Diptera). Ann. Ent. Soc. America 61: 421-450. Eizemberg, R., Sabagh, L.T., Mello, R.S. (2008): First record of myiasis in Aplastodiscus arildae (Anura: Hylidae) by Noto- chaeta bufonivora (Diptera: Sarcophagidae) in the Neotropical area. Parasitol. Res. 102: 329331. Hagman, M., Pape, T., Schulte, R. (2005): Flesh fy myiasis (Dip- tera, Sarcophagidae) in Peruvian poison frogs genus Epipedo- bates (Anura, Dendrobatidae). Phyllomedusa 4: 6973. Kraus, F. (2007): Fly parasitism in Papuan frogs, with a discus- sion of ecological factors infuencing evolution of life-history differences. J. Nat. Hist. 41: 18631874. Lopes, H.S. (1981): Notes on American Sarcophagidae (Diptera). Rev. Bras. Biol. 41: 149-152. Lopes, H.S., Vogelsang, E.G. (1953): Notochaeta bufonivora n. sp., parasita de Bufo granulosus Spix em Venezuela (Diptera Sarcophagidae). Rev. Bras. Biol. 25:139143. Lynch, J.D. (1999): Lista anotada y claves para las ranas (gnero Eleutherodactylus) chocoanas del Valle del Cauca, y apuntes sobre las especies de la Cordillera Occidental adyacente. Cal- dasia 21: 184-202. Medina, D., Rivera, M., Cossio, R., Medina, E., Bermdez, S. (2009): Primer registro de miasis por Sarcophagidae (Diptera: Oestroidea) en Hyalinobatrachium feischmanni (Anura: Cent- rolenidae) de Panam. Rev. Mex. Biodiv. 80: 263264. Mello-Patiu, C.A., Luna-Dias, C. (2010): Myiasis in the Neotro- pical Amphibian Hypsiboas beckeri (Anura: Hylidae) by a new species of Lepidodexia (Diptera: Sarcophagidae). J. Parasitol. 96: 685-688. Pounds, J.A., Crump, M.L. (1987): Harlequin frogs along a tro- pical montane stream: aggregation and the risk of predation by frog-eating fies. Biotropica 19: 306-309. Souza Jr., F.L.S., Souza, C.W.O., Hipolito, M., Baldassi, L., Martins, M.L. (1989): Cases of buccal myiasis in the bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana Shaw, 1802), with larvae of Notochaeta sp. Aldrich, 1916 (Diptera: Sarcophagidae) in So Paulo, Brazil. Mem. Inst. Oswaldo Cruz 84:517518. Travers, S. L., Townsend, J.H. (2010): Myiasis on a Neotropi- cal leaf frog Agalychnis saltator Taylor, 1955. Herp. Notes 3: 355-357. Accepted by Philip de Pous
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