There are no sandflies in SE Asia

... according to the US army.

I was digging up some online papers for my parasitology project when I came upon this article. It's a US military document, consolidating info pertaining to parasites and their arthropod vectors during military deployments. Chapter 7 is on sandflies.

From the Guide to Entomological Surveillance during Contingency Operations:

Geographic distribution and habitat

Sand flies occur mainly in the tropics and subtropics, with a few species ranging into temperate zones of the northern (to 500N) and southern (to 400S) hemispheres. Distribution is limited to areas that have temperatures above 15.60C for at least 3 months of the year. There are no sand flies in New Zealand or on Pacific Islands. Human-biting sand flies in the Old World [geographical term referrring to the Eastern Hemisphere including Africa, Europe, Asia and Australasia] are distributed mostly in the subtropics, with a few human-biters south of the Sahara and none in Southeast Asia. In the New World, they are limited mainly to the tropics.

I had to read the last few lines a few times to make sure I understood it correctly. There are no human-biting sandflies in Southeast Asia? Whadda? I don't know what to say. American ignorance? Or entomologist-consultants with extremely limited knowledge? Obviously, their troops who have been to SE Asia have never been bitten by sandflies before.

Either that, or when Americans talk about sandflies, they mean a different kind of fly.

posted by Husky @ 5/24/2005 09:13:00 PM  |