An oviposition trap to collect immatures of coprophagous moth flies (Diptera: Psychodidae)

Abstract

Larvae of Psychodidae develop in a variety of breeding sites, including vertebrate feces. As searching for the larvae can be an extremely difficult task, immatures of many species are little known, with descriptions of coprophagous moth flies all from outside the Neotropics. In an attempt to mitigate this challenge, we tested an oviposition trap using cattle dung as attractant, measured the efficiency and specificity of the traps and the most efficient period of exposition in the field. With 60 traps installed in one fragment of ombrophilous forest, 344 immatures were collected, distributed in four species of Psychoda and one of Feuerborniella. Psychodidae accounted for 75% of the collected Diptera. The high specificity of the trap to Psychodidae contrasts with other studies on coprophagous fauna where they appear in low abundance. Based on the metrics in this study, the most efficient period of trapping exposition was between five to eight days, but the difference was not significant probably due to the high number of zero observations among the traps. Many questions pertaining to coprophagous moth flies remain unanswered. Further research is needed to improve trapping efficiency, elucidate the effects of attractants and determine how environmental factors influence the attractiveness of bait.