Carnus hemapterus

Quality 0.50 · 0 views · Updated 2 months ago

Species of fly

title: "Carnus hemapterus" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["detritivores", "carnidae", "diptera-of-asia", "diptera-of-europe", "diptera-of-north-america", "parasitic-flies", "parasites-of-birds", "ectoparasites", "wingless-diptera", "insects-described-in-1818", "taxa-named-by-christian-ludwig-nitzsch"] description: "Species of fly" topic_path: "society/religion" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnus_hemapterus" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Species of fly ::

| image = Carnus hemapterus IB.jpg | image_caption= | genus = Carnus (fly) | species = hemapterus | authority = Nitzsch, 1818 | synonyms = *Cenchridobia eggeri Schiner, 1862

  • Carnus setosus Stobbe, 1913
  • Carnus hæmapterus; Newman, 1834

Carnus hemapterus is a small-bodied and partly black-coloured carnid fly. In their adult stage of life, they are blood-sucking ectoparasites of nestling birds. Within the genus Carnus, this is the only species widespread across Europe and the cold and temperate regions of Asia and North America. Female body length is about 1.5 mm, males are smaller. It typically occurs in the nests of medium- to large-bodied birds, provided that the nest is not on the ground. It is particularly common on the chicks of owls, falcons, rollers, bee-eaters and starlings. Females give birth to larvae that live within the nest and feed on organic debris and the pupae also overwinter there. The emergence of imagines is synchronized to the hatch of host nestlings in the subsequent year. They prefer larger chicks within the nest. Adult flies have a winged and an unwinged variety, the latter being more common. In fact, unwinged flies still carry the basal part of their wings, but the majority of the wing is broken off (see a close view of the above photo). Flies live only on the nestlings before and during the development of the plumage, and disappear later on.

Infestations by Carnus hemapterus appear to be rather harmless for the host chicks. In spite of that, barn owl females advertise their resistance genes by the dark spots on their breast and belly; nestlings of heavily spotted females tend to be more resistant. In this study, potential environmental confounding effects were controlled for by cross-fostering chicks.

The faeces and blood remains from these ectoparasitic flies make spots on the eggshell surface of host birds. This contamination appear to increase abundance and diversity of eggshell bacterial loads and, consequently, increase the chance of embryo death.

Image:Barnowl.jpg|Barn owl, heavily spotted Image:Schleiereule-IMG 4064.JPG| Barn owl, medium coloration Image:Tyto alba close up.jpg| Barn owl, weakly spotted

References

References

  1. (1818). "Die Familien und Gattungen der Thierinsekten (Insecta epizoica) als Prodromus einer Naturgeschichte derselben.". Mag. Ent. (Germar).
  2. (1863). "Vorlaufiger Commentar zum dipterologischen Theile der "Fauna Austriaca", mit einer naheren Begrundung der in derselben aufgenommenen neuen Dipteren-Gattungen. V. [concl]". Wien. Ent. Monstschr.
  3. (1913). "Zur Kenntnis der Gattung ''Carnus'' Nitzsch (= ''Cenchridobia'' Schiner) mit 1 nov. sp. (Dipt.)". Deutsche entomologische Zeitschrift.
  4. (1834). "Attempted division of British insects into natural orders". The Entomological Magazine.
  5. (2011). "World Catalog of the Family Carnidae (Diptera, Schizophora)". MYIA.
  6. (2004). "Size versus health as a cue for host a test of the tasty chick hypothesis". [[Parasitology (journal).
  7. (2006). "Prolonged diapause in the ectoparasite ''Carnus hemapterus'' (Diptera: Cyclorrhapha, Acalyptratae) — how frequent is it in parasites?". [[Parasitology (journal).
  8. (2000). "''Carnus hemapterus'' Nitzsch, 1818 (Diptera: Carnidae) parasite on ''Merops apiaster'' L. (Aves: Meropidae) in southern Romania". Travaux du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle "Grigore Antipa".
  9. (2001). "Female plumage spottiness signals parasite resistance in the barn owl (''Tyto alba'')". [[Behavioral Ecology (journal).
  10. (2007). "Spots in starling ''Sturnus unicolor'' eggs are good indicators of ectoparasite load by ''Carnus hemapterus'' (Diptera: Carnidae)". [[Ardeola (journal).
  11. (2018). "Ectoparasite activity during incubation increases microbial growth on avian eggs". [[Microbial Ecology]].

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

detritivorescarnidaediptera-of-asiadiptera-of-europediptera-of-north-americaparasitic-fliesparasites-of-birdsectoparasiteswingless-dipterainsects-described-in-1818taxa-named-by-christian-ludwig-nitzsch