Carbon Dioxide as an Attractant for Host-seeking Cephenemyia Females (Diptera: Oestridae)

Abstract

VARIOUS workers have found that the blood-feeding sexes of almost all taxa of haematophagous arthropods are attracted to and captured in traps emitting carbondioxide^1–9, but so far only one female specimen of an oestrid species¹⁰ has been reported captured in an insect trap baited with CO₂. Oldroyd¹¹ has noted that, although many species of bot flies (Diptera: Oestridae) are known from grazing mammals, little is known about these parasites primarily because the adults are so rarely seen or collected. Although moderate numbers of males of certain species have been collected at mountain or hill top mating sites^12,13, the rareness in collections of females captured in the wild is striking¹⁴. About the only time females are seen in the wild is the brief period when a host is visited by a larvipositing or ovipositing female.