%0 Journal Article
%T Vetufebrus ovatus n. gen., n. sp. (Haemospororida: Plasmodiidae) vectored by a streblid bat fly (Diptera: Streblidae) in Dominican amber
%A George O Poinar
%J Parasites & Vectors
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1756-3305-4-229
%X 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 characterized 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.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.Amber is known for its ability to preserve vertebrate microbial pathogens. Thus far, there are records of malaria, leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis associated with insect vectors in amber deposits ranging from 20 to 100 million years of age [1]. Sporogonic stages of the bird malaria, Plasmodium dominicana, occurred in Culex malariager in Dominican amber [2] and developmental stages of Paleohaemoproteus burmacis (Haemospororida: Plasmodiidae) were reported from an Early Cretaceous Burmese amber biting midge (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) [3]. The present study describes the sporogonic stages of a new genus of bat malaria in a Dominican amber fossil streblid [4]. Extant streblids have never been implicated as vectors of bat malaria, however members of the closely related family Nycteribiidae transmit bat malaria globally [5,6] (Table 1). Since both sexes of streblid bat flies (Diptera: Hippoboscoidea: St
%K Dominican Republic amber
%K Fossil bat malaria
%K Vetufebrus ovatus
%K n. gen.
%K n. sp
%U http://www.parasitesandvectors.com/content/4/1/229