Forcipomyia paludis, (Macfie, 1936) (Macfie, 1936)

Lemke, Martin & Hryniuk, Petro, 2022, First Record Of The Dragonfly Biting Midge Forcipomyia Paludis (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) In Ukraine, Ukrainska Entomofaunistyka 13 (1), pp. 7-10 : 8-9

Discussion

The discovery of F. paludis in western Ukraine increases the number of European countries with occurrences of the dragonfly biting midge to 23. The finding extends its range to Eastern Europe. The site within the NNP “Northern Podillya” is just 130 km east of the only record of F. paludis in Poland ( Dominiak & Michalczuk, 2009). Both sites are in the direct catchment area of the river Bug.

This first record in the Ukraine continues a series of first and new records of F. paludis , which were brought about by intensive research in the stocks of dragonfly photos posted in open natural history online databases. Without photos from these databases, which are mostly uploaded by citizen scientists, knowledge about the occurrence of many taxa would be far less extensive. These databases are particularly valuable for inconspicuous and not commonly known taxa such as F. paludis .

The glossy wings and the fresh, shiny body color indicate that PH photographed an immature male C. aenea . Because there are no water bodies in the surroundings of this site, the immature male had to fly a distance of at least 4.5 km; nearest larger water bodies: Olesko bog area ( Geoportal, 2022).

It is remarkable that F. paludis was also observed so far from the nearest water body. This manifests the strong anchoring of F. paludis in the wing veins by its proboscis. The anchorage had to withstand the centrifugal forces generated by wing flapping and the wind forces generated by the flight of the host. The fact that the parasites were able to withstand the forces acting on them for so long is also due to the chosen anchorage place. Anchorage near the wing base reduces centrifugal forces during wing flapping, and the wide thoracic plate prevents stronger wind forces. The place on an inward vein (angle between adjacent wing cells less than 180°) also reduces wind forces.

This record of F. paludis described here also seems to confirm Wasscher et al. (2021a, b), who noticed a cooccurrence of the dragonfly biting midge and the Great fen-sedge Cladium mariscus (L.) (Pohl) in Europe. Although dragonflies infested with F. paludis have also been recorded at other localities, they found that most records are in localities with C. mariscus or in the immediate vicinity. Here the level of infestation was considerably higher ( Wasscher et al., 2021a, b).

Cladium mariscus also occurs in Ukraine. Here it is rare and classified as “Vulnerable” (“враЗливий”) in the Red Data Book of Ukraine ( Andrienko et al., 2009). Out of 20 known sites, 16 are in western regions ( Andrienko et al., 2009) with a clear center in the northeastern Lviv Region. The locality of the male C. aenea infested with F. paludis presented here is almost surrounded by known localities of C. mariscus : 20 km to the north, 12 km to the southeast, 18 km to the south and 16 km to the southwest ( Borsukevych, 2008; Batochenko, 2019; Ralo & Yurechko, 2019; Yurechko, 2019; UkrBIN, 2022).

In Ukrainian, in addition to the Latin name, species are very often also named with Ukrainian vernacular names. We propose this new name to be “мокрець бабковий”, according to the biology of F. paludis , being specialized parasite of Odonata .

An intensive search in areas with known occurrences of this plant in Ukraine could yield further records of F. paludis for this country. It should be carried out in the area of NNP “Northern Podillya” and its surroundings, the place of our first record. Another promising area seems to be the Danube Delta and its surroundings. From the Danube Delta, Damian-Georgescu (1973) reports the first and so far only record of F. paludis for Romania: “Distribution:Africa, USSR. In our country it was captured in the Danube Delta (Puiuleț).” (“Răspîndire: Africa, U. R. S. S. În țară a fost capturată in Delta Dunării (Puiuleț).”) The site “Puiuleț” refers to a lake (and a short canal) within the Danube Delta, c. 3.5 km east of Caraorman (Tulcea county; WGS84: 45.0829° N, 29.4340° E). Interestingly, only c. 45 km to the northeast is a known occurrence of Cladium mariscus at Vylkove, Izmail District, Odessa Region ( Andrienko et al., 2009).