Morphological re-description and molecular identiication of Tabanidae... 117 Morphological re-description and molecular identification of Tabanidae (Diptera) in East Africa Claire M. Mugasa 1,2 , Jandouwe Villinger 1 , Joseph Gitau 1 , Nelly Ndungu 1,3 , Marc Ciosi 1,4 , Daniel Masiga 1 1 International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), Nairobi, Kenya 2 School of Biosecurity Biotechnical Laboratory Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Biosecurity (COVAB), Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda 3 Social Insects Research Group, Department of Zoology and Entomo- logy, University of Pretoria, Hatield, 0028 Pretoria, South Africa 4 Institute of Molecular Cell and Systems Biology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK Corresponding author: Daniel Masiga (dmasiga@icipe.org) Academic editor: T. Dikow  |  Received 19 October 2017  |  Accepted 9 April 2018  |  Published 26 June 2018 http://zoobank.org/AB4EED07-0C95-4020-B4BB-E6EEE5AC8D02 Citation: Mugasa CM, Villinger J, Gitau J, Ndungu N, Ciosi M, Masiga D (2018) Morphological re-description and molecular identiication of Tabanidae (Diptera) in East Africa. ZooKeys 769: 117–144. https://doi.org/10.3897/ zookeys.769.21144 Abstract Biting lies of the family Tabanidae are important vectors of human and animal diseases across conti- nents. However, records of Africa tabanids are fragmentary and mostly cursory. To improve identiication, documentation and description of Tabanidae in East Africa, a baseline survey for the identiication and description of Tabanidae in three eastern African countries was conducted. Tabanids from various loca- tions in Uganda (Wakiso District), Tanzania (Tarangire National Park) and Kenya (Shimba Hills National Reserve, Muhaka, Nguruman) were collected. In Uganda, octenol baited F-traps were used to target taba- nids, while NG2G traps baited with cow urine and acetone were employed in Kenya and Tanzania. he tabanids were identiied using morphological and molecular methods. Morphologically, ive genera (An- cala, Tabanus, Atylotus, Chrysops and Haematopota) and fourteen species of the Tabanidae were identiied. Among the 14 species identiied, six belonged to the genus Tabanus of which two (T. donaldsoni and T. guineensis) had not been described before in East Africa. he greatest diversity of tabanid species were col- lected from the Shimba Hills National Reserve, while collections from Uganda (around the shores of Lake Victoria) had the fewest number of species. However, the Ancala genus was found in Uganda, but not in Kenya or Tanzania. Maximum likelihood phylogenies of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase 1 (COI) genes sequenced in this study show deinite concordance with morphological species identiications, ex- cept for Atylotus. his survey will be critical to building a complete checklist of Tabanidae prevalent in the region, expanding knowledge of these important vectors of human and animal diseases. ZooKeys 769: 117–144 (2018) doi: 10.3897/zookeys.769.21144 http://zookeys.pensoft.net Copyright Claire M. Mugasa et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. RESEARCH ARTICLE Launched to accelerate biodiversity research A peer-reviewed open-access journal