O. Merkl szerk.: Folia Entomologica Hungarica 69. (Budapest, 2008)

than other types of associates, thus loss of parasite species is of considerable concern (WHITEMAN & PARKER 2005). In Africa, a major human-induced change is the replacement of the native large herbivore fauna to non-native herds of domesticated cattle, sheep and goats. Thanks to conservation efforts carried out in the Republic of South Africa (RSA), the opposite shift may also occur; some areas are currently re-colonized by formerly extinct large herbivores, like the African Elephant, Loxodonta africana (BLUMENBACH, 1797). This prompts the question whether or not the guild dipterans living on elephant dung go extinct with elephants. This question is relevant for conservation biology at least for two reasons. Firstly, this guild is quite species rich (40 species in the present sample, see below), thus embodies a considerable part of insect biodiversity in itself. Secondly, coprophagous dipterans play an important role in the degradation of faeces and, therefore, probably influence the nutrient cycling of ecosystems shaped by large grazing herbivores (see e.g. WALL & STRONG 1987). There is no easy answer to the question, however, the overestimation of host specificity may easily lead us to overestimate co-extinction rates. Columbicola extinctus MALCOMSON, 1937, the louse specific to the extinct passenger pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius (LINNAEUS, 1766) is often used as an icon of extinct parasites. However, it has been 'brought back' from extinction by showing it to be conspecific with lice from the extant Land-tailed pigeon (CLAYTON & PRICE 1999). In case of large-bodied grazing herbivores, MORGAN et al. (2005) have recently shown that the species composition of the helminth fauna of the Saiga Antelope, Saiga tatarica (LINNAEUS, 1766) is almost totally identical with the helmith fauna of domestic cattle herds in Kazakhstan. Extensive studies carried out in the Western Palearctic indicate that horse dung attracts a rather specific fly community, while the fly assemblages living on cattle or sheep dung are less specific to the dung type, rather they are shaped by biogeographical processes and habitat characteristics (PAPP 1971, 1976, 1985, 1992). No similar studies were carried out on the dung flies of other continents. Motivated by these controversies, here I set out to compare the species composition of elephant dung fly assemblages to that of cattle dung fly assemblages living in the same habitat. Although the consistency of elephant dung is different from that of all domestic mammals, cattle dung was chosen for comparison since cattle is one of the most abundant largebodied grazing animals in the sub-Saharan livestock.