Sepedon sphegea (Fabricius, 1775)

Khaghaninia, S., Kazerani, F. & Vala, Jean-Claude, 2018, New Data About Snail-Killing Flies (Diptera, Sciomyzidae) In Iran, Vestnik Zoologii 52 (1), pp. 21-30 : 25

Sepedon sphegea (Fabricius, 1775)

Material examined: Iran: East Azerbaijan Province, Jolfa (grassland habitat) [38°52´N, 46°01´E, 1350 m], 5.07.2010, 3 ♂ (Khaghaninia leg.).

Distribution. Widespread in Palearctic Region. Iran: Tirgari, Massoud (1978); Motamedi et al. (2006).

Biology. Neff, Berg (1966) described the complete life cycle and figured all the immature stages. That was one of the first sciomyzids known as predators of aquatic snails ( Neff, Berg, 1966). Many snails species belonging to Lymnaeidae , Physidae and Planorbidae particularly some Biomphalaria spp. implicated as intermediate host of human schistosomiasis ( Neff, Berg, 1966). In Iran, Tirgari (1977) used their larvae for his field experiments against Planrbidae. Also, Mc Donnell et al. (2005) collected third-instar larva feeding on Radix gedrosiana (Annandale, Prashad, 1919) from Iran (Shushtar). This species is multivoltine, and overwinters as adult ( Neff, Berg, 1966, Gaponov, 2016).