BITING MIDGES — WIRTH AND BLANTON 239 



Museum (Natural History) and to Dr. Alan Stone of the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture for assistance on the types of Williston and Macfie. 

 Dr. P. A. Woke of the U. S. Public Health Service and Dr. L. E. 

 Rozeboom of Johns Hopkins University also furnished Panama 

 material for study, including some specimens from field collections 

 which in part formed the type series of new species described by Fox 

 (1947) and Barbosa (1947). 



Economic Importance 



The role of Culicoides biting midges as vectors of pathogenic 

 organisms has hardly been investigated enough to give any index of 

 their potential importance, but it seems likely that their role is minor 

 compared with that of mosquitoes, fleas, lice, and ticks. However, 

 studies already made indicate that Culicoides may play an important 

 role in disease transmission, principally as vectors of filarial worms 

 (Buckley, 1934, 1938; Chardrome and Peel, 1951; Dampf, 1936; 

 Henrard and Peel, 1949; Hopkins, 1952; Hopkins and Nicholas, 1952; 

 Mirsa, Mirsa, and Ortiz, 1952; Steward, 1933) and of certain groups of 

 viruses such as bluetongue of sheep (du Toit, 1944; Price and Hardy, 

 1954) and fowlpox (Tokunaga, 1937). 



By their annoying attacks in tremendous numbers, Culicoides can 

 make life almost unbearable in areas where certain anthropophilic 

 species occur. The most pestiferous American species is Culicoides 

 jurens (Poey), which in some coastal areas is troublesome enough to 

 retard the development of otherwise favorable resorts (Adamson, 

 1939; Dove, Hall, and Hull, 1932; Myers, 1935; Painter, 1926). 

 This species is a pest along the Panama coasts. At Fort Kobbe in the 

 Canal Zone women and children frequently request medical treatment 

 for secondary infections resulting from Culicoides bites. C. Jurens is 

 doubly annoying because it is one of the few species of Culicoides that 

 will readily enter houses, and the females are so small that ordinary or 

 untreated window screens are no barrier to them. 



The importance of Culicoides and other small, hairy members of 

 the Heleidae as pollinators of tropical economic plants has only 

 recently been discovered. Posnette (1944) found that heleid midges 

 are the chief pollinators of cacao in Trinidad, and Warmke (1951, 

 1952) that they are the most important pollinators of the Para rubber 

 tree in tropical America. Included among the known rubber pol- 

 linators are C. diaholicus Hoffman and C. jamaicensis Edwards (Wirth. 

 1956). 



Geography and Climate in Panama 



Geography (Goldman, 1920; Schuchert, 1935): Panama, the 

 southernmost of the Central American republics, lies at the narrowest 



