A preliminary checklist and key to the genera and subgenera of Tabanidae (Diptera) of Bolivia with particular reference to Santa Cruz Department

This paper documents 32 genera and 167 species of Tabanidae reported from Bolivia. All available data are cited for each species. A key to genera and subgenera is presented and includes illustrations. This preliminary checklist and key is intended as a baseline for further study, the aim of which is to establish which species are of greatest economic importance.

The identification of Anopheles (Nyssorhynchus) rondoni (Diptera: Culicidae) in Mato Grosso, Brazil: an analysis of key character variability

A morphological study was made of a population of Anopheles (Nyssorhynchus) rondoni (Neiva and Pinto) from northern Mato Grosso, Brazil. This population usually lacked the primary key character of a dark basal band on hindtarsomere 3, i.e., hindtarsomere 3 was all white as in most other members of the subgenus. It was determined that this species can be recognized instead by the presence of a dark spot on the thorax made up of a large dark prescutellar space that is contiguous with a concolorous central area on the scutellum. A secondary character of a dark area on the costa created by the fusion of the humeral dark, presector dark and sector dark proximal spots is also usually reliable. Regression analyses comparing the lengths and ratios of the dark bands on hindtarsomeres 2 to those on 3 describe a straight line relationship. This suggests that the "atypical" population is at one end of a character gradient. We propose that in the subgenus Nyssorhynchus individuals that have a long basal band on hindtarsomere 2 are more likely to also have a basal band on hindtarsomere 3. The pupal stage of this species has not been previously described. Reared-associated specimens from this study show that the pupa can be easily differentiated from all other Nyssorhynchus by the relatively stout, usually 2 or 3 branched (1-5), setae 1 and 5 on segments IV-VII.

Separation and Mapping of Chromosomes of Parasitic Protozoa

Many protozoan parasites represent an important group of human pathogens. Pulsed Field Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) analysis has been an important tool for fundamental genetic studies of parasites like Trypanosoma, Leishmania, Giardia or the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. We present PFGE conditions allowing a high resolution separation of chromosomes ranging from 500 to 4000 kb within a two day electrophoresis run. In addition, we present conditions for separating large chromosomes (2000-6000 kb) within 36 hr. We demontrate that the application of two dimentional PFGE (2D-PFGE) technique to parasite karyotypes is a very useful method for the analysis of dispersed gene families and comparative studies of the intrachomosomal genome organization