Prevalence of dipterous flies with veterinary importance in selected sheep ' s farms and slaughter houses in Jazan , Saudi Arabia

A survey for Dipterous flies was conducted in 3 private sheep's' farms and 3 governmental slaughter houses at Abu Arish, Alquayiyah, (Eastern Jazan); Duhaygah and Mihliyah (Northern Jazan); Mizhirah and Industrial City (Southern Jazan). Each locality was visited weekly to collect the flies using aerial sweeping net. A total of 5312 specimens consisting of 12 species, 1 subspecies within 8 genera, belonging to 7 families: Calliphoridae, Sarcophagidae, Muscidae, Ceratopogonidae, Utilidae, Sphaeroceridae, and Chloropidae were recorded. Among the total flies collected in all localities Coproica vegans (Haliday) was the most abundant species followed by Anatricus erianceus Loew and they represented 72.74% and 21.71% of the total collection, respectively. On the other hand, Culicoides imicola Kieffer, Sarcophaga ruficornis (Fabricius) and Musca lucidula (Loew) were recorded in few numbers and they represented 0.09%0.1% of the total collection. Physiphora alceae (Preyssler) and Musca sorbens Wiedemann were recorded only from slaughter houses. In addtion, Sarcophaga dux Thompson is recorded for the first time from Jazan during the present investigation. For accurate location of sampling sites, details of the selected area such as longitude, latitude and altitude were computed using the global positioning system (GPS).


INTRODUCTION
Jazan region, occupying an area of about 40,000 km 2 , and it stretches along the coastline of the Red Sea.Public services and facilities of the region help establishing minor industries, mainly in fields of agriculture and livestock, which correspond with the rational significance of Jazan region.Moreover, livestock especially sheep are considered as the main source of animal proteins in Jazan.Ministry of Agriculture gave several reports on a variety of infectious and noninfectious diseases which affect the economic production of livestock, but with very little attention to the vectors transmit or cause these diseases.Although Dipterous flies are the most important arthropod vectors of animal diseases causing severe economic losses (Mellor et al., 2000;Heath 2002;Williams, 2009;and Barin et al., 2010), only some information on the occurrence of these flies in Jazan region are included in separated investigations that carried out by Hilali et al. (2003), and Dawah and Abdullah (2006).Accordingly, the present study aimed to establish the prevalence of dipterous flies associated with sheep's in Jazan.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
The survey of flies was conducted in 3 private sheep's' farms and 3 governmental slaughter houses (Fig. 1) at Abu Arish ( 16 Survey period extended from January (the coldest month) to June (the hottest month) 2010, during which each locality was visited weekly to collect the flies using aerial sweeping net (Hilali et al., 2003).A total of 144 insect collections were carried out from all the selected farms and slaughter houses.The collected flies were killed by chilling them at -20°C for 25-30 minutes.Small flies were identified, counted, recorded and then preserved in 70% ethanol and glycerin.Specimens were identified by using keys of Sabrosky's (1951), Hennig (1955-64), Shaumar et al., (1989), Borkent andWirth (1997), andPape (1998).For conformation of species identification some specimens were sent to the faculty of Science, Cairo University, to compare with type specimens in the Reference Collection.The nomenclatures of species are updated depending on the annual checklist database of Evenhuis et al. (2008).
For accurate location of sampling sites, details of these localities such as longitude, latitude and altitude (Table 1) were computed using the global positioning system (GPS, Trex Vista ® HCx).Ecological data including, temperature, relative humidity, pressure, wind velocity and rainfall rate were obtained from the Department of Meteorology, Jazan (Table 2).For statistical analysis ANOVA was done (SAS, 1987).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results of this study revealed that, 5312 flies, Fig 2 (2180 from farms, Fig. 3 and 3132 from slaughter houses, Fig. 4) belonging to 12 species, 1 subspecies, 8 genera and 7 families: Calliphoridae, Sarcophagidae, Muscidae, Ceratopogonidae, Utilidae, Sphaeroceridae, and Chloropidae were recorded (Table,3).According to their importance to livestock, the flies were categorized into the following groups: 1) flies causing myiasis, Chrysomya albiceps (Wiedemann), Chrysomya marginalis (Wiedemann), Sarcophaga ruficornis (Fabricius), Sarcophaga dux to feed and oviposit.Muscid flies are also act as biological or mechanical vectors of pathogens (Graczyk et al., 1999;Fischer et al., 2001;Muhammad and Ludeck 2004).Among the total insect collections (Table 3, Fig. 2) Coproica vegans was the most abundant species and it represented 72.74% of the total collection, followed by Anatricus erianceus (21.71%),Musca domestica calleva Walker (2. 07% ) and Musca domestica (1.86 %).The high density populations of Coproica vegans and Anatrichus erianceus have a considerable nuisance value that cause annoyance and may reduce feeding, leading to reduction in animal productivity.On the other hand, Sarcophaga ruficornis and Musca lucidula were encountered in few numbers (5-6 flies) in farms, as well as in slaughter houses.The nematoceran biting midges Culicoides imicola, the main field vector of AHSV (African horse sickness virus) and BTV (blue tongue virus ) in Saudi Arabia (Lane, 1983 andMellor et al., 2000), was collected from Mizhirah, Mihliyah and Industrial City.It was reported previously in Saudi Arabia from Riyadh (Boorman, 1989;Alahmed and Kheir, 2005) and from Abha, Jazan and Al Kharj (Hilali et al., 2003).The coprophagous fly Physiphora alceae, and face fly Musca sorbens were recorded only from slaughter houses by the respective numbers 4 and 5 flies.In addition, Sarcophaga dux is record from Jazan (Southern Saudi Arabia) for the first time during this investigation, while it was reported earlier from Jeddah western Saudi Arabia by Gadallah and Bosly (2006).
As show in Table (3) the captured eye fly Anatricus erianceus (Chloropidae) was significantly higher in number (P< 0.5) at farms than at slaughter houses where 843, 310 flies were recorded, respectively.This might be attributed to the comparatively high number of sheep at slaughter houses (150-450 sheep, Table 1) and also to the flies' habit of being attracted to eyes to feed on lachrymal secretions and other body fluids of various animals (Chansang and Mulla, 2008).On the other hand, the spherocerid dung flies Coproica vegans was significantly higher in number (P< 0.5) at slaughter houses than at farms where 2669 and 1195 flies were recorded, respectively.The presence of dung in large amount in slaughter houses without removing for long periods may explain this result.
Concerning the monthly abundance of flies at both farms and slaughter houses, Table (6) elucidated that, flies are more abundant at the coldest months January and February where the temperature is more favorable and average minimum and maximum temperatures are 21 o C and 32 o C, respectively; meanwhile the least number of flies were recorded at the hottest month June which has average minimum and maximum temperatures of 29 o C and 39 o C, respectively.The same finding was obtained by Al-Sheikh et al. (2000), and the adverse effects of high temperature on adult survival can explain these results (Hunt et al., 1989;and Wittman and Baylis, 2000).Comparing the abundance of Anatricus erianceus and Coproica vegans at farms and slaughter houses showed that: at farms (Table 4) Anatricus erianceus was more abundant at Alquayiyah (Eastern Jazan) followed by Duhaygah (Northern Jazan), then Mizhirah (Southern Jazan).On the other hand, Coproica vegans was more abundant at Duhaygah (Northern Jazan) followed by Mizhirah (Southern Jazan), then Alquayiyah (Eastern Jazan).Meanwhile, at slaughter houses (Table 5) Anatricus erianceus as well as Coproica vegans were more abundant at Abu Arish (Eastern Jazan) followed by Mihliyah (Northern Jazan) then Industrial City (Southern Jazan).
These results elucidated that the two species are more abundant at Eastern region followed by Northern then Southern region.Data in Tables (1, 2, 4 & 5) showed that there is a relation between the number of recorded flies and elevation of the region, but intensive ecological studies are required to give an appropriate interpretation for this observation.Regarding monthly abundance, Anatricus erianceus and Coproica vegans have different patterns of abundance at farms (Figs. 5  & 6) and slaughter houses (Figs. 7 & 8).
These differences in abundance patterns might be due to the integrated effects of more than one factors such as sheep number, weather parameters, and also presence of natural enemies in the surveyed localities (Mendes and Linhares, 2002).

CONCLUSION
Although the number of sphaerocerid and chloropid flies caught in this study was relatively high, but there was no great diversity in species composition.This might be due to some limitations in the types of traps used for collection.Also, the number of recorded species, especially biting midges expected to increase if further collections are made using light traps stationed at many points of animals' pens and slaughter houses.

Fig. 2 .Fig. 3 .
Fig.2.Dipterous species collected from farms and slaughter houses at Jazan region during the period from January 2010-June 2010

Fig. 4 .
Fig.4.Dipterous species collected from slaughter houses at Jazan region during the period from January 2010-June 2010

Table 1 :
GPS data of the surveyed farms and slaughter houses

Table 3 :
Dipterous species collected from farms and slaughter houses at Jazan region during the period from January 2010-June 2010

Table 5 :
Monthly abundance of flies collected from slaughter houses at Abu Arish (Eastern Jazan); Mihliyah (Northern Jazan); Industrial City (Southern Jazan) during the period from January-June 2010

Table ( 6
) Monthly number of the encountered flies from all study localities at Jazan region during the period from January 2010-June 2010