Tsetse flies : Recent Study
According to a new atlas published by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Tsetse flies are present in 34 African countries.
- Tsetse flies (genus Glossina) are unicellular blood-sucking insects.
- They are holometaboulos insects, females giving birth to full-grown larvae which rapidly pupate in the soil.
- They are arranged taxonomically and ecologically into three groups: the fusca, or forest, group (subgenus Austenina); the morsitans, or savanna, group (subgenus Glossina); and the palpalis, or riverine, group (subgenus Nemorhina)
- They are found in local patches of dense vegetation along banks of rivers.
- Also found in lakes in arid terrain, and also in dense, wet, heavily forested equatorial rainforest
- They feed on blood and transmit the Trypanosoma parasites, which are responsible for sleeping sickness in humans and animal trypanosomosis or “Nagana” in cattle.
- They are also linked to nagana in African livestock, resulting in annual agricultural losses estimated in the billions of dollars.
- The collected data confirmed the presence of Glossina species in 34 countries, ranging from Northern Senegal (around 15 degrees north) to South Africa (Kwazulu-Natal province at 28.5 degrees south).
