STATUS: STABLE

Tabanus are the biting horseflies; the females can cut the skin with a mouthpart that look like a scissor in order to cut the skin and feed on the blood of the victims, the sting is very  painful;  these horseflies are the transport for diseases like anthrax  , and vessels for worms and trypanosomes. Tabanus vittiger’s females feed on marine iguanas, sea turtles, land tortoises and humans. Females need the blood for maturation of eggs, and they are autogenous (produce independently), However, males are phytophagous (feed on green plants). The number one predator of the Tabanus is the solitary sand wasps Stictiapunctata (Fabricius) and Stictiasignata (Linnaeus) (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) , these wasps play a very important  epidemiologic role: the wasps catch the horseflies and take them away even when during the blood meal.