The family Phrynidae has been mainly recorded from America, including the Antilles, and Heterophrynus is one of its genera endemic of South America and is mainly associated with Amazonian ecosystems. Currently, the genus has 16 valid species, but many original descriptions are ambiguous or incomplete. The more complete work about this genus only includes seven of the currently valid species, and in some cases, some characters useful for the species identification, were not described. This situation hampers the species recognition and the comparison among species to propose diagnosis accurate. Using characters from the male and female genitalia to improve the diagnosis, we present complementary descriptions for four species of Heterophrynus and describe two new species. We present details of morphologic variation, compare the pedipalp spines among the species, present actualized distributions, and for first time, we present a complete illustration of the male genital of eight species using SEM pictures.
Communities of adult sarcosaprophagous dipterans were evaluated using both Schoenly traps (BST) baited with rabbit carcasses and the traditional forensic methodology (TradC) in the Sabana de Bogotà, Colombia. During 42 sampling days, 2,726 adult dipterans were collected (2,291 by BST and 435 by TradC) belonging to 31 morphospecies (31 by BST and 23 by TradC) and 14 families (14 by BST and 10 by TradC). Significant differences in the species abundance, richness, diversity, and dominance were found between BTC and TradC. BST collected more individuals and species than TradC. Rank correlations and matched rank-abundance plots indicated a significant nesting of the dipteran community collected by TradC with respect to BST captures. By comparing the structure and composition of the collected communities, only those collected by BST showed repeatability of the results. The above-mentioned information allows us to consider BST as a superior methodology to perform inventories of Diptera imagoes associated with carcasses. In the community collected by BST, the most abundant and rich families were Calliphoridae, Muscidae, Phoridae, and Sarcophagidae, all of them necrophagous species associated with carcasses. Calliphoridae and Muscidae were dominant in the first stages of decomposition (fresh and active decomposition), and Phoridae was the principal family during decomposition, dry remains, and bones stages.
Mediante capturas realizadas empleando trampa de luz en el Parque Nacional Natural Utría, Chocó, en 2017, se recolectaron cinco machos de Podalia orsilochus (Megalopygidae), confirmando la presencia de esta especie en Colombia y siendo el primer registro de ella para el departamento del Chocó. Así mismo, la identificación de especímenes fotografiados complementó los registros, mediante la adición de localidades de Antioquia, Caldas, Huila, Quindío, Santander y Valle del Cauca.