Abstract

Cutaneous leishmaniasis is endemic in many parts of Iran including Ilam Province. Sand flies are biological vectors of Leishmania species in human and between human and animals in the old world and new world. The special objectives of the present study regarding to the sand flies were to determine the species diversity, relative population density and sex ratio of sand flies in Musian as a part of Ilam province. The entomological studies were conducted in the four zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ZCL) infected villages, from May 2008 - October 2008. Sticky traps were used to collect sand flies from indoor and outdoor places during the present study. In this faunistic entomological study, totally 1335 sand flies, including 17.5 females and 82.5 males, were collected from indoor and outdoor places, 857 (62.2) and 478 (37.8), respectively. Totally 10 species of sand flies we're recognized, 3 belonging to the Phlebotomus (P. alexandri, P. papatasi and P. mongolensis) and 7 belonging to Sergentomyia (S. sintoni, S. antennata, S. tnervynae, S. theodori, S. clydei, S. tiberiadis and S. palestinesis) genera. Finally, it is concluded that the composition of species in Mousian is almost similar to the other parts of Iran with dominance of P. papatasi.