Abstract:
Background: Both sexes of bat flies in the families Nycteribiidae and Streblidae (Diptera: Hippoboscoidea) reside in
the hair or on the wing membranes of bats and feed on blood. Members of the Nycteribiidae transmit bat malaria
globally however extant streblids have never been implemented as vectors of bat malaria. The present study
shows that during the Tertiary, streblids also were vectors of bat malaria.
Results: A new haemospororidan, Vetufebrus ovatus, n. gen., n. sp., (Haemospororida: Plasmodiidae) is described
from two oocysts attached to the midgut wall and sporozoites in salivary glands and ducts of a fossil bat fly
(Diptera: Streblidae) in Dominican amber. The new genus is characterized by ovoid oocysts, short, stubby
sporozoites with rounded ends and its occurrence in a fossil streblid. This is the first haemosporidian reported from
a streblid bat fly and shows that representatives of the Hippoboscoidea were vectoring bat malaria in the New
World by the mid-Tertiary.
Conclusions: This report is the first evidence of an extant or extinct streblid bat fly transmitting malaria.
Discovering a mid-tertiary malarial parasite in a fossil streblid that closely resembles members of a malarial genus
found in nycteribiid bat flies today shows how little we know about the vector associations of streblids. While no
malaria parasites have been found in extant streblids, they probably occur and it is possible that streblids were the
earliest lineage of flies that transmitted bat malaria to Chiroptera.
