﻿First records of two genera and thirteen species of Tabanidae (Diptera) from Honduras

﻿Abstract This works presents information on the diversity of the Tabanidae of Honduras as a product of the examination of 386 specimens and a literature review. Thirteen species and two genera (Bolbodimyia and Dasychela) are recorded from the country for the first time. Eighty-five species distributed in 22 genera, five tribes, and three subfamilies are now known from Honduras. A key to the subfamilies, tribes, and genera of the known Honduran species is also included. All new records are mapped and illustrated to aid in the identification of the species.


Introduction
Tabanidae is a family of Diptera that includes flies considered of medical and veterinary importance due to the blood sucking habits of the adults. Currently the group contains around 4,400 species worldwide (Pape et al. 2011). The Neotropical region has the highest diversity, with approximately 1,205 species and about 28% of the global fauna (Henriques et al. 2012), but many its areas continue to be unexplored.
Honduran species diversity is poorly known for many groups. Linares and Orozco (2017) estimated that at least half of the insects in the country are known unknowns, species already described that are not recorded. This poor understanding of the diversity makes conducting ecological and conservation studies very difficult in the country.
This work presents for the first time an overview of the tabanids of Honduras. By nature, this is vastly incomplete as there are many more habitats to sample and collections to revise. In comparison, Costa Rica with less than half the size of Honduras has more than twice the number of known species of tabanids. The aims of this article are: 1) to present the new findings regarding the species diversity in the country, 2) to integrate the records on the tabanid fauna of Honduras scattered in the literature, 3) to provide an updated list of the species, and 4) to create a key for the genera of tabanids known in the country.
Distributional records were obtained from label data and from the literature. A species distribution map was made for the new records using SimpleMappr (https://www.simplemappr.net/) and Microsoft Power Point v. 2112.
Photographs were taken using a Canon 100 mm lens mounted on a Canon Rebel T5i attached to a macro rail. Composite images were obtained using PICOLAY v. 2020-02-06 (http://www.picolay.de). Individual images were organized in plates in GIMP v. 2.10.24 (http://www.gimp.org).

Results and discussion
Eighteen genera and 47 species were found in the 386 specimens examined. Thirteen species and two genera are recorded for the first time (Fig. 1).
With these new records Honduras has now a diversity of 85 species of horseflies (Table 1). This represents an increase of 15.3% compared to the previously known taxa (72 species) but it's still a low number, and many more species are expected to be discovered in the future. Two additional species, Tabanus femoralis Kröber from Escuela Agricola Panamericana Zamorano, Francisco Morazan, and Stypommisa lerida (Fairchild) from 15 km west of La Ceiba, Atlántida, are recorded in GBIF (https://www.gbif.org/ es/occurrence/3048772282 and https://www.gbif.org/es/occurrence/3385753663). Since this material was not examined, it is not included in the list, but the records are probably valid.  Coscarón and Papavero (2009), except were indicated.

Key to the subfamilies, tribes, and genera of Tabanidae from Honduras
Modified from Fairchild (1969) and Burger (2009