MECHANOTACTILE AND OLFACTORY ANTENNAL SENSILLA IN 4 SPECIES OF FEMALETABANIDS (DIPTERA)

This paper reports the loci, structure and numerical distribution of v arious types of mechanotactile and olfactory sensilla in four species of female tabanids, i.e., Tabanus rubidus, Tabanus striatus, Haematopo ta dissimilis, and Tabanus subcinerences. It was observed that sensill a chaetica were confined to scape and pedicel, while sensilla basiconi ca were confined to the first segment of flagellum. Sensilla trichoide a and sensilla stellate were distributed over all the segments of flag ellum in all four species of tabanids, although they were present in m aximum number in the first segment. The significant difference in the total number of various types of sensilla in different species has als o been observed.