DOI: 10.5061/dryad.4b8gthtrj
title: Louse flies (Diptera: Hippoboscidae): United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, and Isle of Man: Citizen science data: Part 2, host associations

description: British Trust for Ornithology licensed bird ringers, and other citizen
 scientists with an interest in entomology, collected 4365 louse flies
 (also known as flat flies) and keds (Diptera: Hippoboscidae) for the
 Mapping the UK's Flat Flies Project. The project expanded to include
 the Republic of Ireland and the Isle of Man as well as the United Kingdom,
 and includes a few flies from as early as 2002, as well as those from the
 main study period of 2020 - 2024. The flies included in this database are
 the UK Hippoboscids: louse flies: Crataerina pallida, Ornithomya
 avicularia, Ornithomya chloropus, Ornithomya biloba, Stenepteryx
 hirundinis, Pseudolynchia canariensis, Pseudolynchia garzettae, and Icosta
 minor, and the keds* Lipoptena cervi, Hippobosca equina* and
 Melophagus ovinus. This dataset included the Hippoboscid species names,
 year of collection, location details to an accuracy of a 10km Ordnance
 Survey grid square, and host species names. Only the year of collection is
 provided, rather than a full date; locations have been blurred to 10km,
 and site names are not included to protect the locations of additionally
 protected and other rare species of birds.
description: This dataset contains some of the raw data from the "Mapping
 the UK's Flat Flies Project" related to the host-parasite
 species associations. It includes data on louse flies and keds collected
 in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and the Isle of Man, but
 British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) licensed bird ringers and other
 citizen scientists with an interest in entomology. Most records date from
 the main study period of June 2020 to January 2025, but there are a few
 earlier records dating back to 2002. Volunteer bird
 ringers were sent collecting kits and asked to return them with any flies
 collected and the relevant metadata at the end of each season. Flies
 collected at any time - mostly as pinned specimens - were also accepted
 from entomologists, and anyone who wanted a Hippoboscid identified via the
 Hippoboscidae and Nycteribiidae Recording Scheme. Flies were identified by
 the author using published keys and a binocular microscope.
description: # Louse flies (Diptera: Hippoboscidae): United Kingdom, Republic of
 Ireland and Isle of Man: Citizen science data: Part 2, host associations
 Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.4b8gthtrj](10.5061/dryad.4b8gthtrj) ##
 Description of the data and file structure The data were collected to
 explore the host-parasite interactions between Hippoboscidae in the United
 Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and the Isle of Man, and their avian and
 mammalian hosts. ### Files and variables #### File:
 UKFlatFliesHostData.csv **Description:**  ##### Variables * FFsp: The
 species of flat fly / louse fly / ked / Hippoboscid. The species are
 indicated by the first letter of the genus name, followed by a full stop
 (period), and the species name with no spaces. Thus *Ornithomya
 avicularia* appears as "O.avicularia". * YearCollected: The year
 in which the Hippoboscid was collected. The year in which any puparium was
 collected is given as the year in which it was collected (not the year in
 which it emerged as in the previous dataset "Louse flies (Diptera:
 Hippoboscidae): United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and Isle of Man:
 Citizen science data: Part 1, mapping"). * tenkUK: The United Kingdom
 10 km Ordnance Survey Grid Square (WGS84 projection) from which UK and
 Isle of Man flies were collected * tenkIreland: The 10 km Irish Grid
 Square (Irish Transverse Mercator, ITM, projection) from which the Irish
 flies were collected * HostBinom: The scientific name of the host species
 * hostSP: The common name (as used in the United Kingdom) of the host
 species All missing fields are indicated by blank fields ## Code/software
 This is a comma-separated file, .csv file, that should be readable on a
 wide range of software ## Access information Other publicly accessible
 locations of the data: * Not applicable Data was derived from the
 following sources: * Not applicable