Contr butions of the S American Entomological Institute Volume 25, Number 1, 1988 a) she. ae ‘ eye AN ATLAS OF WING PHOTOGRAPHS, WITH A SUMMARY OF THE NUMERICAL CHARACTERS OF THE NEOTROPICAL SPECIES OF CULICOIDES (DIPTERA: CERATOPOGONIDAE) : By W. W. Wirth, A. L. Dyce, and G. R. Spinellier Contributions of the American Entomological Institute Volume 25, Number 1, 1988 bk Lu ee 2 AN ATLAS OF WING PHOTOGRAPHS, WITH A SUMMARY OF THE NUMERICAL CHARACTERS OF THE NEOTROPICAL SPECIES OF CULICOIDES (DIPTERA: CERATOPOGONIDAE) By W. W. Wirth, A. L. Dyce, and G. R. SpinelliWirth, Dyce and Spinelli: Neotropical Culicoides 5 INTRODUCTION Background The biting midges of the genus Culicoides Latreille are notorious blood-sucking pests of man and animals throughout the world. Because of their sinall size and crepuscular habits they are not frequently collected and consequently are poorly known. In recent years their incrimination as vectors of human and animal disease has focused increasing attention to their collection and study. and. at the same time. has caused a growing need for manuals and keys for their identification. At present. there is no one taxonomic key that will serve for the determination of all the Neotropical species and existing keys to the species of limited areas are badly out of date. We believe that this atlas of wing photographs will greatly aid in field identifications because the specific differences in wing patterns are. with few exceptions, easy to distinguish. In most cases. this photographic atlas will guide the user to a small group of related species that can be distinguished by using one of the taxonomic keys listed below. Microscopic slide preparations must be made of specimens in order to view and measure the characters necessary for identification. Table | presents the numerical characters of each species that may be useful in confirming an identification made on the basis of the wing patterns or by of supplementary keys. “General reviews of the morphology. biology. and classification of the family Ceratopogonidae have been published by Wirth (1952a) and Downes and Wirth (1981). Keys to the genera of Ceratopogonidae were presented by Macfie (1940). Johannsen (1943), and Wirth et al. (1974, 1977). Good reviews of the biology and economic importance of the bloodsucking species of Culicoides were given by Downes (1958). Kettle (1962, 1965. 1969). and Blanton and Wirth (1979). Atchley et al. (1981) published a complete world-wide bibliography of the family Ceratopogonidae with a keyword index. Fox (1955) published a catalog of the Culicoides of the Americas. and Wirth (1974) cataloged the Neotropical species. Khalaf (1954) and Vargas (1960. 1973) published keys and descriptions to the subgenera of American Culicoides For lists, reviews, and keys to the Culicoides species in various limited areas of the Neotropical region, the following publications are available: Forattini (1957) for the Neotropical species. but now badly out of date: Wirth and Blanton (1959) for Panama and neighboring countries: Wirth and Blanton (1973) for the Amazon Basin: Wirth and Blanton (1974) for the West Indies: Aitken et al. (1975) for Trinidad, Ramirez Perez (1984) for Venezuela: Barreto (1986) for Colombia: Hudson (1986) for Suriname. and Spinelli. and Wirth (1984, 1987) for South America South of the Amazon Basin. Important works dealing with habitats, biology. and descriptions of the immature stages were published by: Forattini et al. (1958) for southern Brazil: Linley and Davies (1971) for the Bahamas and Caribbean area: Vitale et al. (1981) for arboreal habitats in Panama: Williams (1964) for Trinidad: M. O. Wirth et al. (1968) for plant materials in Panama: Wirth and Hubert (1960) for species from cacti in Baja California: Wirth and Soria (1981) for species reared from flathea bracts in Brazil and Colombia: and Kettle and Linley (1969a, 1969) for the important economic coastal species in Jamaica. Linley and Davies (1971) reviewed the problem of sandflies versus tourism in the West ‘| Indies, summarized the biology of the most important species. and made recommendations | for control. The main thrust of their entire article is toward ways of avoiding a sandfly problem whenever possible rather than trying to control an already existing one. They "advise that intending developers should fully investigate the sandfly situation before commencing their projects. since control measures forced upon them later may be very _/ expensive."