Comparative larval morphology of the European bone-skippers, Thyreophora cynophila (Panzer, 1798) and Centrophlebomyia furcata (Fabricius, 1794) (Diptera: Piophilidae), with notes on their coexistence and natural history

Abstract

Considered at times as extinct, the European bone-skippers Thyreophora cynophila and Centrophlebomyia furcata (Diptera: Piophilidae) have been recently rediscovered in Spain, coexisting in some areas. Nevertheless, apart from their typical association with big mammal carcasses, little is known about them and the other species of subtribe Thyreophorina. In the present paper, the larval morphology of T. cynophila is described for the first time and compared with that of C. furcata. The morphology of cephalopharyngeal skeleton, the number and arrangement of the spines of ventral creeping welts, and the morphology and presence or absence of tubercles in the two last segments of the body, are the main characters allowing for larval identification of both species. Some preliminary field and laboratory observations on the behaviour and life cycle of the two species are also provided.

Keywords:

• larval morphology
• Piophilidae
• Thyreophorina
• Thyreophora cynophila
• Centrophlebomyia furcata

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to Marco Antonio Nieto, curator of the Department of Zoology and Physical Anthropology of the University of Alcalá, who accompanied us and provided us with invaluable help in the field surveys. We are also grateful to Dr Juan Junoy for lending us his microscopy and photography equipment. Three anonymous reviewers provided valuable comments and suggestions that significantly improved the present manuscript. Many people who were mentioned in a previous work (Martín-Vega and Baz 2011) facilitated the access to supplementary feeding stations between January and March 2011. In the surveys from November 2011 to January 2012, Nuria Cardo Maeso, Enrique Montero Verde and Teodoro Hernández of the “Servicio de Montes y Espacios Naturales’ of the ‘Consejería de Agricultura” of Cuenca Province, kindly facilitated access and accompanied us to the visited feeding stations. Also, forestry agents Francisco Cuquerella and Ernesto Vindel provided valuable information on the occurrence of T. cynophila in Cuenca Province. This work has been funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (Research Project BOS2003-00400) and the IUICP (Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Ciencias Policiales) of the University of Alcalá (Project IUICP/PI2010/001). DMV was supported by a grant from the IUICP.