Impact of Horn Flies, Haematobia irritans (L.) (Diptera: Muscidae), on the Behavior of Beef Steers

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 656-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.T. Boland ◽  
G. Scaglia ◽  
K. Umemura
Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 817
Author(s):  
Javier Espinoza ◽  
Manuel Chacón-Fuentes ◽  
Andrés Quiroz ◽  
Leonardo Bardehle ◽  
Paul Escobar-Bahamondes ◽  
...  

Haematobia irritans is an obligate bloodsucking ectoparasite of cattle and is the global major pest of livestock production. Currently, H. irritans management is largely dependent upon broad-spectrum pesticides, which lately has led to the development of insecticide resistance. Thus, alternative control methods are necessary. Endophyte-infected grasses have been studied as an alternative due to their capability to biosynthesize alkaloids associated with anti-insect activities. Thus, the main aim of this study was to evaluate the antifeedant and repellent activity of lolines obtained from endophyte-infected tall fescue against H. irritans adults in laboratory conditions. The alkaloid extract (ALKE) was obtained by acid–base extraction. N-formyl loline (NFL) and N-acetyl loline (NAL) were isolated by preparative thin layer chromatography (pTLC) and column chromatography (CC), and the loline was prepared by acid hydrolysis of a NFL/NAL mixture. Loline identification was performed by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Feeding behavior was evaluated by a non-choice test, and olfactory response was evaluated using a Y-tube olfactometer. Accordingly, all samples showed antifeedant activities. NFL was the most antifeedant compound at 0.5 µg/µL and 1.0 µg/µL, and it was statistically equal to NAL but different to loline; however, NAL was not statistically different to loline. NFL and NAL at 0.25 µg/µL were more active than loline. All samples except loline exhibited spatial repellency in the olfactometer. Thus, the little or non-adverse effects for cattle and beneficial activities of those lolines make them suitable candidates for horn fly management.


2012 ◽  
Vol 111 (3) ◽  
pp. 1391-1395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorena Torres ◽  
Consuelo Almazán ◽  
Nieves Ayllón ◽  
Ruth C. Galindo ◽  
Rodrigo Rosario-Cruz ◽  
...  

1965 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Khan ◽  
J. E. Lawson

Spraying yearlings with 2% Co-Ral in July was 100% effective for systemic control of cattle grubs (Hypoderma spp.). Spraying spring calves with 1% Co-Ral in August was equally effective, and gave better control (P < 0.01) than spraying with 1 or 2% Co-Ral in June or 0.5% Co-Ral in July. Co-Ral sprays were not suitable for horn fly (Haematobia irritans L.) control.Two per cent Sevin sprayed on calves in June or July did not control cattle grubs, and only partially controlled horn flies.Compared with the control group, the average daily gain was higher (P < 0.05) to weaning but lower (P < 0.05) in the feedlot in calves sprayed with 2% Sevin in June. Similarly, it was higher (P < 0.05) from birth to the end of the feedlot period in calves sprayed with 2% Co-Ral in June, but lower (P < 0.05) in calves sprayed with 0.5% Co-Ral in July.Mild toxicosis occurred in five calves sprayed with 2% Co-Ral in June, and subclinical toxicosis in calves sprayed with 1% Co-Ral in August.


2020 ◽  
Vol 86 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mukund Madhav ◽  
Rhys Parry ◽  
Jess A. T. Morgan ◽  
Peter James ◽  
Sassan Asgari

ABSTRACT The horn fly, Haematobia irritans irritans, is a hematophagous parasite of livestock distributed throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Welfare losses on livestock due to horn fly infestation are estimated to cost between $1 billion and $2.5 billion (U.S. dollars) annually in North America and Brazil. The endosymbiotic bacterium Wolbachia pipientis is a maternally inherited manipulator of reproductive biology in arthropods and naturally infects laboratory colonies of horn flies from Kerrville, TX, and Alberta, Canada, but it has also been identified in wild-caught samples from Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Hungary. Reassembly of PacBio long-read and Illumina genomic DNA libraries from the Kerrville H. i. irritans genome project allowed for a complete and circularized 1.3-Mb Wolbachia genome (wIrr). Annotation of wIrr yielded 1,249 coding genes, 34 tRNAs, 3 rRNAs, and 5 prophage regions. Comparative genomics and whole-genome Bayesian evolutionary analysis of wIrr compared to published Wolbachia genomes suggested that wIrr is most closely related to and diverged from Wolbachia supergroup A strains known to infect Drosophila spp. Whole-genome synteny analyses between wIrr and closely related genomes indicated that wIrr has undergone significant genome rearrangements while maintaining high nucleotide identity. Comparative analysis of the cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) genes of wIrr suggested two phylogenetically distinct CI loci and acquisition of another cifB homolog from phylogenetically distant supergroup A Wolbachia strains, suggesting horizontal acquisition of these loci. The wIrr genome provides a resource for future examination of the impact Wolbachia may have in both biocontrol and potential insecticide resistance of horn flies. IMPORTANCE Horn flies, Haematobia irritans irritans, are obligate hematophagous parasites of cattle having significant effects on production and animal welfare. Control of horn flies mainly relies on the use of insecticides, but issues with resistance have increased interest in development of alternative means of control. Wolbachia pipientis is an endosymbiont bacterium known to have a range of effects on host reproduction, such as induction of cytoplasmic incompatibility, feminization, male killing, and also impacts vector transmission. These characteristics of Wolbachia have been exploited in biological control approaches for a range of insect pests. Here we report the assembly and annotation of the circular genome of the Wolbachia strain of the Kerrville, TX, horn fly (wIrr). Annotation of wIrr suggests its unique features, including the horizontal acquisition of additional transcriptionally active cytoplasmic incompatibility loci. This study provides the foundation for future studies of Wolbachia-induced biological effects for control of horn flies.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (22) ◽  
pp. 6936
Author(s):  
Javier Espinoza ◽  
Cristian Medina ◽  
Washington Aniñir ◽  
Paul Escobar-Bahamondes ◽  
Emilio Ungerfeld ◽  
...  

Haematobia irritans is a cosmopolitan obligate blood-feeding ectoparasite of cattle and is the major global pest of livestock production. Currently, H. irritans management is largely dependent on broad-spectrum pesticides, which has led to the development of insecticide resistance. Thus, alternative control methods are needed. Essential oils have been studied as an alternative due to their wide spectrum of biological activities against insects. Thus, the main aim of this study was to evaluate the insecticidal, repellent and antifeedant activity of the essential oils from Blepharocalyx cruckshanksii leaves and Pilgerodendron uviferum heartwood against horn flies in laboratory conditions. The composition of the essential oils was analyzed using gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Accordingly, α-pinene (36.50%) and limonene (20.50%) were the principal components of the B. cruckchanksii essential oil, and δ-cadinol (24.16%), cubenol (22.64%), 15-copaenol (15.46%) and δ-cadinene (10.81%) were the most abundant compounds in the P. uviferum essential oil. Mortality of flies and feeding behavior were evaluated by non-choice tests, and olfactory response was evaluated using a Y-tube olfactometer. Both essential oils were toxic to horn flies, with LC50 values for B. cruckchanksii essential oil of 3.58 µL L−1 air at 4 h, and for P. uviferum essential oil of 9.41 µL L−1 air and 1.02 µL L−1 air at 1 and 4 h, respectively. Moreover, the essential oils exhibited spatial repellency in the olfactometer using only 10 µg of each oil, and these significantly reduced the horn fly feeding at all doses evaluated. Although further laboratory and field studies related to the insectistatic and insecticide properties of these essential oils against H. irritans are necessary, B. cruckshanksii leaves and P. uviferum heartwood essential oils are promising candidates for horn fly management.


2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Evely Giovanna Leite Costa ◽  
Juliana Campos Carneiro ◽  
Gabriela Almeida Bastos ◽  
Viviane De Oliveira Vasconcelos ◽  
Rogério Marcos de Souza ◽  
...  

Background: Beef cattle is considered to be one of the most important economic activities, however, it presents problems in the production chain such as the occurrence of parasites that reduce the growth, performance, productivity and may cause mortalities occasionally. The chemical control is the most used alternative to reduce ectoparasites. Nevertheless, inappropriate management of insecticides has contributed to the selection of population resistant to the products available on the market. This paper aimed to evaluate the practices of management and the application of insecticides used to control horn flies in farms of dairy cattle in the North of the state of Minas Gerais.Materials, Methods & Results: It was visited 62 rural properties, which produce milk. Semi-structured questionnaires were applied in order to obtain information on the characteristics of the properties (location, size and type of the cattle), on the knowledge about the epidemiology of the horn flies, and on the practices adopted to the control of those parasites. The practices adopted include the moment of application of the insecticides, frequency of the cattle treatment, used products, method of application, number of animals treated, and choice and substitution criteria of insecticides. The data collected were tabulated in contingency tables, and they were analyzed using the chi-square test, considering a significance of 5%. The racial composition of the cattle in the farms was mainly mixed-race of unknown origin, representing 77% of the animals evaluated. In this research, it was reported a greater incidence of horn flies infestation on adult beef herd, and 23.6% of the producers reported occurrences of infestation in the whole herd, not differing by categories. The infestation peaks of the fly occurred from November to March. It was also found a greater frequency of pyrethroid use in the region (P < 0.001), where 43.1% of the producers used associations of pyrethroid or organophosphate to control the flies, high efficiency being reported. From the properties assessed, 92% presented inadequacy in the practices of control of horn flies, for instance, the lack of using cattle manure tank, the accumulation of open waste, the lack of rotation of insecticides, which can favor the selection of resistant flies.Discussion: In this paper, it was reported 77.19% of predominance of Haematobia irritans infestation from November to March mainly in animals with a higher percentage of European or mixed-race genetics. Such results corroborate with the literature, because it was verified the influence of race and hair color in the level of infestation in the animals, although, in the same race, each individual presents different susceptibilities. Taurine beef cattle are more susceptible to infestation by horn flies than zebu cattle. Thus, the lower the proportion of zebu cattle genetics in the herd, the greater the infestation. Taurine beef cattle are more infested because shows a greater number of sebaceous glands and greater concentration of testosterone being attractive before the calves castrated, cows, and after, young animals. Cypermethrin was predominant in most part of the commercial insecticides used in the properties to control this ectoparasite, which could be justified by the large number of products available on the market with such compound in the formulations. The high efficiency of the associations of the insecticides reported by the producers could justify itself by the presence of active ingredients with different mechanisms of action. However, the limitation on the use of these associations is that not always the chemical compounds contained in the drug act simultaneously, being able to favor the selection of parasites resistant to different insecticides present in these formulations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-472
Author(s):  
Márcia Alves de Medeiros ◽  
Antonio Thadeu Medeiros de Barros ◽  
Franklin Riet-Correa ◽  
Ana Rita Marques ◽  
José Radmácyo Gomes Lopes ◽  
...  

Abstract To identify susceptible and resistant Haematobia irritans cows, horn flies were counted biweekly for 3 years in a herd of 25 Sindhi cows. Repeated measures linear mixed models were created including cow as a random factor. The results were analyzed by: 1) observing horn fly counts, considering fly-susceptible cows with infestations appearing in the upper quartile more than 50% of the weeks and in the lower quartile less than 20% of the weeks, and fly-resistant cows those that the number of flies was in the lower quartile more than 50% of the weeks and in the upper quartile less than 20%; 2) by the best linear unbiased predictions (BLUPs), to evaluate the cow effect on fly counts. Fly-susceptible cows were those in which the infestation appeared in the 90th percentile of the BLUPs, whereas fly-resistant cows appeared in the 10th percentile. For the observational method the individuals identified as resistant varied between 8% and 20% and 8% to 12% were susceptible. For the BLUP method, the rates of susceptible and resistant cows were 12%. The agreement among methods suggests that susceptible cows can be identified by observations of fly counts, allowing for selective breeding, culling or treatment.


1986 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 575-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. O. HAUFE

Experiments conducted on a ranch in southern Alberta evaluated the productivity of the cow-calf unit in breeding herds in response to treatment with pesticidal (8% fenvalerate wt/wt) ear tags to control infestations of horn flies, Haematobia irritans (L.). Optimum economic productivity was found to depend on the effectiveness of tags in establishing fly-free grazing (FFG) conditions and maintaining them without interruption during the complete summer grazing period. This was achieved when animals were tagged before the first overwintering horn flies emerged in spring. Present formulations of pesticide in tags will support the required FFG conditions for 85–90 d. Management of herds for maximum gains throughout the summer in southern Alberta requires fly control that will maintain FFG conditions for at least 115 d. Rates of gain in weight of animals under FFG conditions on dry range conformed with the 16% improvement in efficiency of production projected from controlled experiments on irrigated pastures. Key words: Cattle, cow-calf unit, flies, Haematobia irritans, ear tags, fenvalerate


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