Bulletin of the Iraq Natural History Museum

A new spontaneous mutation (dh) is described for Culex quinquefasciatus Say. This
phenotype was observed in the second generation to cause complete coloration of the head
capsule and the siphon of the larvae. This character is mainly detectable in the larval stage
and slightly in the adult stage.
The reciprocal mass matting between mutants from F2 generation and normal wild type
sibs, revealed that the mode of inheritance can be controlled by an autosomal recessive
gene(s). This happened for both sexes with slightly variability in their expression. No
significant larval mortalities were found in all crosses.

Both normally developed insects and insects developed after cessation of eggs growth were
used in this work. Cessation of eggs growth occurred following abnormal conditions, which
lasted for 3.5 months before developing into adults, due to the war led by the U.S. and her
alliances against Iraq. These insects showed low rates of water contents and an active response
to water loss. Therefore their tolerance of desiccation was weak. In addition, they had an active
ability to restore their water loss quickly, after return them to a culture, this indicates that some
changes occurred in their integumentary properties were not permanent and took their turn
within one population only, but may or may not serve this population. That depends on the
climatic factors.

230 stool samples were collected from 2 state homes for (males and females) to investigate
the infection of different intestinal parasites (pathogenic and non-pathogenic).
The infection rate was higher among males 15.7% than females 6%, these rates were
increased when concentration method was employed up to 54.8% for males and 8.7% for
females significantly.
Most infected orphans were found to harbor single parasite followed by double, triple
parasites.
The highest rate of infection was found among young age group (1-5) years old, while
the older age groups got lowest rates.
Of helminthes, the commonest parasite was Hymenolepis nana 5.7% and of protozoa, the
commonest intestinal parasite was Giardia lamblia 7.4%.

The dry weight of the liver of Rana ridibunda was expressed as percentage of the dry
weight of the body. The female liver weight always exceeds that of the male, except in July
and September. The difference between males and females for the whole year, regardless of
months, was not significant. Livers of both sexes were relatively large prior to hibernation
(December), decreased during hibernation (January and February) until a minimum weight in
March (post-hibernation).
The increase of liver weight during December is apparently simply to meet the metabolic
requirements for survival during hibernation. The percent reduction in liver weight during
hibernation was 1.081% in males and 1.356% in females. The decrease in liver weight during
the hibernation months may be attributed to the utilization of liver glycogen. The rise in mean
weight from August to October indicates that marsh frogs, after spawning, were actively
feeding.
INTRODUCTION
The liver

Wohlfahrtia longicorpuris sp. nov., from Iraq described, illustrated and distinguished from
related species. The adults were reared from larvae collected from ulcer of a human face.
Wohlfahrtia Brauer and Bergenstam is one of most important genus,which contains 19
species (Pape, 1998), some of these produce myiasis in mammals (Verves,1985).Taxonomic
revision of this genus has been carried out by the following authors: Rohdendrof (1956),
Zumpt (1965) and Pape (1996).

A survey of haemoproteids among the eight species of Iraq rallids were carried out in the
middle, south, and west of Iraq. Two haemoproteods were recorded, Haeomproteus porzanae
(Galli-Valerio, 1907) as a new record for Iraq and the new species H. baghdadensis described
from Fulica atra L. collected in the middle of Iraq.
INTRODUCTION

A collection of 118 specimens of Iraqi phasianid birds belong to four species was examined
for haematozoa. Results show that 21.2% of them were infected with one or more of four
species of blood parasites; Haemoproteus danilewskyi, H. santosdiasi, Plasmodium sp. and
microfilaria. Haemoproteus danilewskyi is reported here for the first time in Iraq.

The field efficacy of Actellic (organophosphate), Neporex (insect growth regulator) and
Ficam (carbamate), at the application rates of 2-4, 0.4-0.8 and 0.1-0.2 g AI/m2 respectively,
was studied against the larvae of Musca domestica L. Results of treatments involving horse
manure indicated that Actellic and Neporex produced sharp decrease of larval numbers (close
to zero) for 21d. But there was a slight recovery in larval numbers 14 d following treatment
with Ficam. The populations of predator mites were not affected due to insecticidal
applications.

A comparative study was carried out on ecological and genetical adaptation of three Iraqi
freshwater snails, Physa acuta, Melanopsis buccinoidea and Melanoides tuberculata, in
respect to acute toxicity of heavy metals (Zn, Cd and Hg). Longevity are used as poisoning
tolerance criterion. LT 50 and LT 100 were determined for the studied snails at (0.5, 1, 5, and
10 ppm), for the three metals. Results indicated that Physa acuta had a higher tolerance than
Melanopsis buccinoidea and Melanoides tuberculata, which was the lower one. Previous
exposure to heavy metals in the original habitat was affecting on experimental tolerance and
no relationships of physical and chemical factors (total hardness, temperature, D. O. and
sulphate) between original and experimental exposuring has been occurred. Results indicated
no ability of the three species for genetical adaptation on experimental bioassays, except for
lower concentrations (0.5, 1 ppm), since Physa acuta managed to give more than two healthy
new generations, whereas Melanopsis buccinoidea was disabled to give more than one
weakling generation.The species Melanoides tuberculata showed a complete disability to give
any generation . The present study suggested a new wide experiment to be design, not only
by acute toxicity but with chronic toxicity, in order to determine the interference between the
ecological and genetical adaptation and the previous exposure to many environmental
pollutants.

This study deals with Aphid predators of the genus Coccinella L. recognized in different
regions of the world. They have been arranged systematically according to Korschefsky’s
catalogue (1931). The list includes sites of study and the reference (works) that consider
Coccinellids as predator. The study has revealed that there are thirteen Aphid predator species
belonging to the genus Coccinella L. in different places of the world, although there might be
other species that were not recorded by this work.

The ground pearls, Porphyrophora tritici (Bod.) is a new insect pest on wheat recorded for
the first time from Mousl Province, North of Iraq.