TAXONOMIC STUDIES ON FAMILY TIPULIDAE (NEMATOCERA- DIPTERA) IN EGYPT

Abstract

Flies of the family Tipulidae (Diptera-Nematocera) are economically important,as many of their larvae are serious agricultural pests to cultivated crops. The present work aims at collecting and studying the taxonomy of the family and the results are summarized as follows: I-Collection of materials: Collection of tipulid flies was carried out from Mari t993 to January 1996 in I5 localities belonging to I5 govertiorates [Coastal Strip,Western desert,Lower Nile valley, Upper Nile valley.Eastern desert and Sinai]. Sweeping net and the ultra violet light trap were the methods of collection. A total of 3 72 tipulid specimens of IO species belonging to 9 genera under two subfamilies were collected. The main hosts are wheat, maize, rice, barely, clover and meadows. The highest occurrence of the most tipulid species recorded at harvesting seasons. Regarding the total number of collected specimens of each species they could be arranged descendingly as follows: Tipula oleracae Linnaeus was the most common species( l 43 specimens)followed by Conosia irrorata (Wiedemann) (78 Specimens) Trimicra inconspicua (Loew) (55 specimens), Eeioptera septmetronis Osten-Sacken (53 specimens), Limnobi marginata(Macquart) (21 specimens), Dicranomyia ventralis(Schummel) (II specimens), Helius longirostris (Wiedemann)(7 specimens), Gonomyia sexguttata(Dale) (2 specimens) and lastly the two rare species Gonomyia spuria (Bergroth) and Symplecta stictica Meigen which represented by one specimen for each.