Acervo de mutucas (Diptera: Tabanidae) da coleção de entomologia da Universidade Federal do Tocantins

Abstract

The Tabanidae family is popularly known as “horseflies”. They are robust flies whose identifying characteristics are the elongated disc cell and the r1 and r2+r3 veins curved towards the apex of the wing. Tabanidae are of great veterinary interest, since females are vectors of several diseases for domestic animals. Therefore, preserving knowledge about the species of the family is extremely important, and for this, biological collections play a fundamental role in the conservation of biological knowledge, including taxonomic knowledge. The present work aims to inventory all Tabanidae specimens from the Entomology Collection of the Federal University of Tocantins, with the aim of contributing to the expansion of general knowledge about Tabanidae deposited in the CEUFT. A significant part of the CEUFT had already been identified at the species level. The remaining specimens were identified through taxonomic keys, species descriptions, taxonomic reviews, diagnoses, illustrations and photographs. For the production of the inventory and data analysis, the individuals were tabulated, informing their collection data (location, coordinates, date and collection method) and identification (sex, order, family, genus, species, author and determiner). A total of 4,645 specimens were examined, of which 3,918 were identified at the taxonomic level of species, 719 at the genus level and 8 at the family level. The Entomology Collection contains 193 species within 29 genera, 7 tribes and 3 subfamilies. The specimens come from two biogeographic regions, Neotropical and Nearctic, with the largest number of specimens coming from Brazil, in the state of Tocantins.