''Gigantodax'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

of 68

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

black flies A black fly or blackfly (sometimes called a buffalo gnat, turkey gnat, or white socks) is any member of the family Simuliidae of the Culicomorpha infraorder. It is related to the Ceratopogonidae, Chironomidae, and Thaumaleidae. Over 2,200 speci ...

distributed along the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

from

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, t ...

.
The Polytene Chromosomes of Cnesia dissimilis (Edwards) and Three Species of Gigantodax Enderlein (Diptera: Simuliidae) from Lanin National Park (Argentina) by Cecilia L Coscaron Arias The Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy of the genus was revised in 1989 by an

academic paper Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally pub ...

published in the

bulletin Bulletin or The Bulletin may refer to: Periodicals (newspapers, magazines, journals) * Bulletin (online newspaper), a Swedish online newspaper * ''The Bulletin'' (Australian periodical), an Australian magazine (1880–2008) ** Bulletin Debate ...

of the American Museum of Natural History. In 1997, researchers from the '' Universidad Nacional del Comahue'' in Rio Negro,

collected

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. Th ...

e of '' G. marginalis'' and other fly species in

Lanín National Park Lanín National Park ( es, Parque Nacional Lanín) is a national park of Argentina, located in the Neuquén Province, with forests of diverse tree varieties, mainly Fagaceae and conifers such as the lenga and the '' Araucaria'', many species of ...

, Neuquén Province. After a close examination included

chromosome A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells the most important of these proteins ar ...

mapping, they reported:

Females are not
anthropophilic In parasitology, anthropophilia, from the Greek ἅνθρωπος (anthrōpos, "human being") and φιλία (philia, "friendship" or "love"), is a preference of a parasite or dermatophyte for humans over other animals.Braun-Falco, Otto (2000). ...
and can be found as well as in
mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...
creeks from sea level to 4,700 m of altitude (Wygodzinsky & Coscaron 1989). ''Gigantodax'' is a peculiar genus, showing the greatest diversity among the Prosimuliini genera, with synapomorphies in imago and preimaginal stages that help to differentiate species in this genus from other genera. The unusual morphology of the
respiratory The respiratory system (also respiratory apparatus, ventilatory system) is a biological system consisting of specific organs and structures used for gas exchange in animals and plants. The anatomy and physiology that make this happen varies gre ...
filaments in the pupal stage is useful in differentiating species.

These

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...

n researchers also analyzed '' G. marginalis'', '' G. fulvescens'', and '' G. chilensis'' and reported that '' Cnesia'', another Prosimuliini genus, is

sympatric In biology, two related species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus frequently encounter one another. An initially interbreeding population that splits into two or more distinct species s ...

with southern populations of ''Gigantodax'' and that both genera breed on both sides of the Andean range in Argentina and

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

subantarctic The sub-Antarctic zone is a region in the Southern Hemisphere, located immediately north of the Antarctic region. This translates roughly to a latitude of between 46° and 60° south of the Equator. The subantarctic region includes many islands ...

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and ...

. They also reported that ''Gigantodax'' species in this area are also sympatric with ''

Simulium ''Simulium'' is a genus of black flies, which may transmit diseases such as onchocerciasis (river blindness). It is a large genus with several hundred species, and 41 subgenera. The flies are pool feeders. Their saliva, which contains anticoa ...

''. These genus was re-examined in 2007 by entomologits from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil who explained that in their paper:

...the first
phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

hypothesis A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can testable, test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on prev ...
for the 13 Southern Hemisphere genera of Simuliidae is proposed, through a cladistic approach. In order to investigate the position of those genera representatives of five Northern Hemisphere genera were also included in the analyses as outgroups. The study was based on a data matrix with 33 terminal taxa and 119 morphological characters of adult, pupa and larva. The phylogenetic analysis under equal weights resulted in four most parsimonious trees, with similar topologies and 349 steps...
Preliminary considerations on phylogeny of Simuliidae Genera from Southern Hemisphere (Insecta, Diptera)

Species

*'' Brophyi (Species group), Brophyi'' species-group :*'' G. antarcticus'' ( Bigot, 1888) :*'' G. awa'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. brophyi'' (

Edwards Edwards may refer to: People * Edwards (surname) * Edwards family, a prominent family from Chile * Edwards Barham (1937-2014), a former member of the Louisiana State Senate * Edwards Pierrepont (1817–1892), an American attorney, jurist, and ora ...

, 1931) :*'' G. chilensis'' (Philippi, 1865) :*'' G. femineus'' (

, 1931) :*'' G. flabellus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. kuscheli'' Wygodzinsky, 1952 :*'' G. laevigatus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. luispenai'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. marginalis'' (

, 1931) :*'' G. multituberculatus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. ortizi'' Wygodzinsky, 1974 :*'' G. osornorum'' Muñoz de Hoyos, Martínez, Mejía & Bueno, 1995 :*'' G. paramorum'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. patihuaycensis'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. rufidulus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. trifidus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. viannamartinsi'' Ramírez-Pérez, 1980 :*'' G. zumbahuae'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 *'' Cilicinus'' species-group :*'' G. arrarteorum'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. basinflatus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. cilicinus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. clandestinus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. destitutus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. fulvescens'' (Blanchard, 1852) :*'' G. incomitatus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. lazoi'' Takaoka, Hirai & Tada, 1988 :*'' G. mariobordai'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. pennipunctus'' Enderlein, 1934 :*'' G. shannoni'' (

, 1931) *'' Cormonsi'' species-group :*'' G. abalosi'' Wygodzinsky, 1958 :*'' G. brevis'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. cormonsi'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. gracilis'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. leonorum'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. misitu'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. praealtus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. siberianus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. vulcanius'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. wygodzinskyi'' Moncada, Muñoz de Hoyos & Bueno, 1981 *'' Igniculus'' species-group :*'' G. carmenae'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. igniculus'' Coscarón & Wygodzinsky, 1962 *'' Minor'' species-group :*'' G. araucanius'' (

, 1931) :*'' G. bolivianus'' Enderlein, 1925 :*'' G. eremicus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. minor'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 *'' Multifilis'' species-group :*'' G. multifilis'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 *'' Wrighti'' species-group :*'' G. adleri'' Moulton, 1996 :*'' G. aquamarensis'' (De León, 1945) :*'' G. bettyae'' Wygodzinsky, 1974 :*'' G. bierigi'' Vargas & Ramírez-Pérez, 1989 :*'' G. cervicornis'' Wygodzinsky, 1974 :*'' G. conviti'' Ramírez-Pérez, 1980 :*'' G. corniculatus'' Wygodzinsky, 1974 :*'' G. cypellus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. dryadicaudicis'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. herreri'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. horcotiani'' Wygodzinsky, 1949 :*'' G. impossibilis'' Wygodzinsky, 1974 :*'' G. incapucara'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. nasutus'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. rufescens'' (

, 1931) :*'' G. septenarius'' Wygodzinsky & Coscarón, 1989 :*'' G. willei'' Vargas & Ramírez-Pérez, 1989 :*'' G. wrighti'' (Vargas, Martínez Palacios & Díaz Nájera, 1944) *Unplaced :*'' G. cuyano'' Coscarón, 1981 :*'' G. dryadibranchium'' Coscarón, 1981 :*'' G. pucara'' Coscarón, 1981

Literature cited

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5560224 Simuliidae Culicomorpha genera Taxa named by Günther Enderlein