Role of horseflies as carriers of dangerous infectious diseases of humans and animals

УДК 619:616.576.89:636.22
DOI 10.33861/2071-8020-2025-1-22-25

Subject Field Overview

Sivkova E.I., Domatsky V. N.

Abstract. Horseflies (family Tabanidae) are the largest blood-sucking insects, which are numerous in the taiga, forest and forest-steppe zones.

The world’s horsefly fauna currently numbers about 3.5 thousand species, of which 114 are known in Russia, 89 in Siberia, and 42 species in the Tyumen region. Attacking animals during grazing, they exhaust them, reducing dairy and meat productivity by 15-45%. To date, the damage caused by horseflies is often difficult to determine due to the fact that attacks on humans and animals occur in combination with other blood-sucking diptera – mosquitoes, midges, woodlice. Large horned cattle representatives are more sensitive to horseflies than to other components of the midge. Horseflies are particularly dangerous as vectors of pathogens of animal and human diseases. The role of these insects in the transmission of tularemia in natural foci of this infection has been proven. The sources of infection of horseflies are primarily various small mammals, including water rats. Horseflies are important as carriers of the causative agent of anthrax. In horseflies, pathogens of rickettsiosis, emcar, pasteurellosis and other infections have been isolated. Horseflies are involved in the transmission of Trypanosoma evansi in horses and camels, anaplasmosis in cattle, Theileria cervi in reindeer, and equine infectious anemia virus. In this regard, the risk of spreading socially significant diseases is quite high and requires constant monitoring of the species composition of parasitic insects and forecasting their numbers, especially in epizootically and epidemiologically disadvantaged territories.

Keywords: horseflies, spread, vectors, infectious diseases, anaplasmosis, leptospirosis, tularemia, anthrax.

Author affiliation:

Domatsky Vladimir N., D. Sc. in Biology, Professor, Chief Scientific Researcher of the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Veterinary Entomology and Arachnology – Branch of the Tyumen Scientific Centre of Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; 2, Institutskaya st, Tyumen; phone: 8-3452-258558; e-mail: vndom72@mail.ru.

Responsible for correspondence with the editorial board: Sivkova Elena I., Ph. D. in Biology, Scientific Researcher of the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Veterinary Entomology and Arachnology – Branch of the Tyumen Scientific Centre of Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; 2, Institutskaya st, Tyumen; phone: 8-3452-258558; e-mail: sivkovaei@mail.ru.

Conflict of Interest Statement: the authors declare no conflict of interest.