Simulium (Nevermania) ruficorne Macquart

Cherairia, Mouna, Adler, Peter H. & Samraoui, Boudjéma, 2014, Biodiversity and Bionomics of the Black Flies (Diptera: Simuliidae) of Northeastern Algeria, Zootaxa 3796 (1), pp. 166-174 : 171

Simulium (Nevermania) ruficorne Macquart

The Algerian records for this species come from the Biskra area ( Edwards 1923, Parrot 1949); the eastern Sahara, particularly the Tassili N’Ajjer Mountains ( Grenier & Clastrier 1960, Belazzoug & Tabet-Derraz 1980); the central Sahara Mountains ( Clastrier & Grenier 1961); and the Tlemcen Mountains ( Chaoui Boudghane-Bendiouis et al. 2012). We found larvae and pupae in two watercourses, one at 278 m and the other at 751 m, with widths of 0.8–6.0 m. The streams were shallow and silty, with low current velocities, and temperatures from 11.4 to 21.2 °C. The species was collected in April and from August to December, suggesting that it was multivoltine in the Seybouse Basin. We found two morphoforms based on gill structure, here designated ‘A’ and ‘B’. The common form, ‘A’, corresponds to typical S. ruficorne (cf. fig. 27h of Freeman & de Meillon 1953). The chromosomes of ‘A’ (1 female and 2 male larvae) agreed exactly with those described from Madeira and Fuerteventura of the Canary archipelago ( Seitz et al. 2012), including IIL- 7, IIIL-1, IIIL-2, X linkage of the thick 83B heteroband, and IIL-1 as an autosomal polymorphism; the two male larvae also expressed unpairing in sections 86–89, as described for half of the Madeira larvae. In October 2012, we collected the pupal exuviae of a specimen with notably thicker, swollen gill filaments, possibly representing a distinct species, which we designate Morphoform ‘B’. Additional sampling, including other life stages, will be required to determine its status. ‘B’ was taken from a water course less than 2 m wide, with shallow (4.8 cm), moderate flow (0.4 m /s).

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