A Simplified Identification key of Egyptian Sandfly Species

Citation: Egypt. Acad. J. Biolog. Sci. (A. Entomology) Vol. 10(4)pp: 8192(2017) Egyptian Academic Journal of Biological Sciences is the official English language journal of the Egyptian Society for Biological Sciences, Department of Entomology, Faculty of Sciences Ain Shams University. Entomology Journal publishes original research papers and reviews from any entomological discipline or from directly allied fields in ecology, behavioral biology, physiology, biochemistry, development, genetics, systematics, morphology, evolution, control of insects, arachnids, and general entomology. www.eajbs.eg.net Provided for non-commercial research and education use. Not for reproduction, distribution or commercial use.


INTRODUCTION
Phlebotomine sandflies are small blood sucking insects belonging to order Diptera, suborder Nematocera, family Psychodidae and subfamily Phlebotominae.Sandflies are known as vectors of a viral disease (Sandfly fever or three-day fever), a bacterial disease (Carrion's disease or Bartonellosis) and protozoal diseases (Cutaneous leishmaniasis, CL and Visceral leishmaniasis, VL).
The identification of sandfly species requires skilled personnel due probably to their minute size and great similarities in their taxonomic characters.The objective of this work is to design a key that is simple and easy to use for identification of the different sandfly species of Egypt.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The illustrations of Lewis (1982), Lane (1986) andEl Sawaf et al. (1985) were used in design and preparation of the present key.

DISCUSSION
In Egypt Phlebotomine sandflies are vectors of sandfly fever virus and two forms of leishmaniases (CL and VL), for this reason the correct identification of the sandfly species is crucial and plays an important role in the course of the epidemiology of the disease transmission and the development of control programs.In the present study, the designed key simply illustrates the morphological characters that are used in sandfly identification.Detailed characters of the P. langeroni female were illustrated (El Sawaf et al., 1985) since the identification of this particular species was based on the male characters in previous keys (Nitzulescu and Nitzulescu, 1933).This key can be of help in the species identification of all sandflies recorded in Egypt.

CONCLUSION
We have produced an illustrated key that is accessible to the non-taxonomist interested in the field of diseases transmitted by sandflyies.In this key the horizontal presentation of the sandfly species facilitates comparison between the different 9 Phlebotomus and 13 Sergentomyia species present in Egypt.