Three new mosquito findings (Diptera: Simuliidae) for the Austrian fauna

Due to its geographical orientation, Austria has a share in four ecoregions and accordingly has the most diverse flowing water bioregions. The resulting development of diverse river biotopes requires a species-rich inventory of lotic faunal elements, to whose typical representatives belong the preimaginal stages of the mosquitoes. So far, 45 species of mosquitoes have been detected in Austria; the number of species is thus similar to that of neighbouring Slovakia (46 species) and Czechia (43 species). Compared to Switzerland (33 species) and Germany (52 species in 2009), the differences are larger. If one assumes a potential species number of around 60 species for Central Europe, neglecting the taxa, which have a rather marginal distribution, then further species detections are to be expected for Austria in the future. The material discussed came from collections carried out by the author during a stay in the Zillertal (state of Tyrol) as well as during the international spring weeks organized by the National Park Administration of the Gesäuse National Park (state of Styria). The overview of the entire mosquito fauna of the national park should be reserved for a separate publication.