Ecological studies on sand flies were carried out in two village of the Nile Delta Governorates namely ; KaferTahla( Qalyubiya) and elQantaraElBeida ( Kaferel-Sheikh) from September 2003 to August 2005. Sand flies were collected weekly from around houses , stables and near burrows using sticky paper traps. A total 9529 sand flies were collected from the two villages, all of which were identified as Phlepotomuspapatasi . Sand fly activity started from April to December with a bionodal annual patterns. The sex ratio of collected sand flies was significantly male biased. Data analysis revaled that sand fly denisities were strongly correlated to temperature but not to relative humidity or wind velocity. Variation in the densities of Phlepotomuspapatasiin both villages did not show a significant effect due to lunar phases. However, sand fly activity was highly positively correlated to fraction illumination.
Key words: Sand flies- Phlepotomuspapatasi- seasonal variation- climate- lunar phases- Egypt.
Yasser.Abdelrahman@fsc.bu.edu.eg