Metamorphosis and gonad maturation in the horn fly Haematobia irritans
1Cátedra de Genética, Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires. Av. San Martin 4453, (1417) Buenos Aires,
Argentina
2Centro de Investigaciones en Química Biológica de Córdoba (CIQUIBIC), Facultad de Ciencias Químicas-Universidad
Nacional de Córdoba and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Ciudad Universitaria
(5000), Córdoba, Argentina
3Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires, CONICET, Fundación Instituto Leloir and Departamento de
Química Biológica, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires. Patricias Argentinas 435,
(1405) Buenos Aires, Argentina
Abstract
The bloodsucking horn fly, Haematobia irritans (L.) (Diptera: Muscidae), is one of the most damaging pests of pasture cattle in many areas of the world. Both male and female imagoes spend their adult stage on the host, while immature stages develop in dung. Our goal was to determine if the progress of H. irritans gonad maturation can be correlated with eye and cuticle pigmentation events that occur during development of the imago within the puparium. The progression of germline cell divisions in immature gonads was analyzed from the beginning of the third larval instar (48 hours after egg hatch) until imago ecdysis. In the developing male larval gonad, meiosis began 72 hours after egg hatch, whereas in females oogonia were premeiotic at 72 hours. Meiosis was not detected in females until the mid-pharate adult stage, 120 hours after puparium formation. Therefore, gonad maturation in females appears to be delayed 144 hours with respect to that in males. In the stages within the puparium, the timing of germline cell division events was correlated with the progress of pigmentation of the eyes and cuticle as external markers.
Keywords: postembryonic development, Muscidae, cattle pest
Abbreviations:, h AEH, hours after egg hatch; h APF, hours after puparium formation
Correspondence: a abasso@agro.uba.ar, b lualque@iib.uba.ar, *Corresponding author, §These authors equally contributed to this work
Received: 18 June 2010 | Accepted: 4 August 2010 | Published: 31 December 2011
Copyright: This is an open access paper. We use the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license that permits unrestricted use, provided that the paper is properly attributed.
ISSN: 1536-2442 | Volume 11, Number 174
Basso AL, Forneris NS, Filiberti A, Argaraña CE, Rabossi A, Quesada-Allué LA. 2011. Metamorphosis and gonad maturation in the horn fly Haematobia irritans. Journal of Insect Science 11:174 available online: insectscience.org/11.174
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