Basilia: a new genus to the Albanian bat fly fauna (Diptera: Nycteribiidae)

Abstract

There are over 160,000 described dipteran species worldwide (Pape & Thompson 2013) and their role is essential in the ecosystems. Although the European Diptera fauna is quite well known, there are some countries, such as Albania, that are extremely understudied regarding dipterans. According to Pape & Beuk (2013) only 932 species and subspecies have been reported from Albania. Nycteribiidae is a small family within the Hippoboscoidea superfamily and it contains 275 species worldwide (Dick & Patterson 2006). Nycteribiid bat flies are obligate, wingless, blood-sucking ectoparasites of bats and 16 species have been described in Europe so far (Pape et al. 2015). Although the Albanian bat fauna is rich with its 32 recorded species (Sachanowicz et al. 2016), previous works on bat flies in this country are sparse. Seven species and one subspecies have been reported to the Albanian fauna. Namely, Nycteribia latreillii (Leach), N. pedicularia Latreille, N. schmidlii Schiner, N. vexata Westwood, Penicillidia conspicua Speiser, P. dufourii (Westwood), P. dufourii dufourii (Westwood) and Phthiridium biarticulatum Hermann (Hůrka 1962; Schieffler et al. 2013).