Blood-sucking flies of the Hippoboscidae family are distributed throughout the world. This family of parasites of birds and mammals currently includes more than 200 species. These insects are of great veterinary importance as carriers of dangerous diseases and other groups of parasites. The genus Ornithophila is one of the smallest genera among Hippoboscidae. Currently, it includes only two species: Ornithophila gestroi and O. metallica. These species are holoptera, widely specialized parasites of birds living in the tropics and subtropics of Asia, Africa, Europe and Central Asia, including Russia and Kazakhstan.
During the annual ringing of birds in the Baikal State Nature Reserve, a new species was collected and described - Ornithophila baikalica. This species was found on the thick-billed warbler, a bird that breeds in southern Siberia and the Russian Far East and migrates in winter to Southeast Asia and occasionally to Egypt, Bhutan, Japan and Malaysia.
The new species differs from all known species of the genus in that tergites 3–5 of the female abdomen are reduced to the size of dots.
The work was published in the journal Nature Conservation Research 9(2): 100–104: A new Ornithophila (Diptera: Hippoboscidae) species from Baikal State Nature Reserve (Russia).