Evandromyia chacuensis

Evandromyia chacuensis is a species of sand fly first circumscribed in 2018 from specimens collected in Argentina.^[1] It is the 12th species currently described in the subgenus Barrettomyia.^[2]

The males and females are both about 2-3mm in length, medium in size when compared to other phlebotomines, and light brown in general color.^[1]

The type specimens were collected in three municipalities of Argentina's Chaco province: Misión Nueva Pompeya in the Dry Chaco ecoregion in the north of the province, and Colonia Benítez and Resistencia in the Humid Chaco ecoregion in the south of the province.^[1]

Sand flies of the genus Evandromyia are among the most numerous and widely distributed sand flies in Argentina, so this new species may be found to play a role in the numerous leishmaniasis outbreaks that have occurred over the past 20 years in the Chaco bioregion, where an increasing number of cases are associated with periurban transmission.^[1] Some species of phlebotomine sand flies are able to transmit the causative agents of Bartonelloses and phleboviral diseases to susceptible mammalian hosts.^{[citation needed]}

The new species name chacuensis was derived from the Quechua word "chacú", connoting a name of a hunting territory or a hunting technique, from which the Hispanic place name Chaco was derived,^[1] and the Latin adjectival suffix "-ensis," meaning “originating in.”