Insects

Aglossa dimidiata (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) is a polyphagous insect whose larval frass, after processing, constitutes insect tea. This study evaluated the effects of four processed hawk teas—traditional, black, oolong, and green—as larval diets on A. dimidiata development and the resulting insect tea quality. The survival rate, developmental duration, morphological traits, frass yield, and biochemical composition of the larvae and insect tea were systematically determined, and the in vitro antioxidant activity of insect tea was evaluated using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical, hydroxyl (·OH) radical, and 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS⁺) radical scavenging assays together with the ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay. The four processing methods had no significant effect on total larval developmental duration (52–53 d) or on head capsule width, body length, or body width within the same instar. By contrast, the green tea process markedly suppressed survival at every instar, with first-instar survival of only 72.29% compared with more than 89% in the other three groups, and reduced frass yield, reaching only 125.41 mg/larva at the eighth instar versus 191.68, 178.37, and 197.09 mg/larva under the traditional, black, and oolong tea processes, respectively. During instars 1–4, the traditional tea process produced the highest yield (0.497 mg/larva) and formed insect-tea particles with smaller minor diameters of approximately 94 to 180 μm. During instars 5–8, the three suitable processes gave comparable yields that were significantly higher than those in the earlier stage, reaching 178 to 197 mg/larva at the eighth instar, while the minor diameter of the particles increased markedly to approximately 303 to 312 μm at the fifth instar and 912 to 927 μm at the eighth instar. All hawk teas contained abundant flavonoids and catechins, and the differential fate of these compounds in the resulting insect teas suggests selective metabolism by the larvae. In the in vitro antioxidant assays, late-instar insect tea prepared by the traditional process showed the highest comprehensive antioxidant index of 93.00, followed by insect tea from the oolong and black tea processes at 84.10 and 74.28, respectively, and total flavonoid and catechin contents showed positive associations with ABTS and FRAP activities (descriptive, n = 3). Overall, traditional processing of hawk teas maintained high survival and frass yield while conferring the strongest antioxidant activity on the resulting insect tea, providing a reference for the production of high-quality insect tea.

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Horse flies (Diptera: Tabanidae) are hematophagous insects of veterinary importance, but how horse-associated assemblages are reorganized across Neotropical biogeographic units remains poorly integrated. We compared 11 validated study-level assemblages to test whether richness comparisons were sensitive to unequal sample size and sampling heterogeneity (H1) and whether biogeographic differentiation was driven mainly by species replacement rather than nestedness (H2). Observed richness was not significantly associated with validated capture size or reported campaigns, but individual-based rarefaction substantially changed richness rankings. Multiple-site Sørensen beta diversity was strongly attributable to Simpson turnover in the core (94.5%) and sensitivity (94.6%) datasets, and mean turnover increased descriptively across progressively deeper Morrone biogeographic separation classes. Across seven quantitative core assemblages, median Top1, Top3, and Top5 contributions were 49.2%, 68.4%, and 81.0%, respectively, and six species occupied the Top1 position. Annual Top1 taxa retained dominance in only 50–75% of positive sampling periods in four temporally resolved studies. Thus, horse-associated assemblages differ primarily through species replacement, while most abundance is concentrated in a small, geographically and temporally variable subset of taxa. Locally and seasonally abundant species are rational first-pass targets for pathogen screening and behavioral investigation, but abundance does not imply vector competence or transmission risk.