Anisopodidae Edwards, 1921

Jan Ševčík

Silesian Museum, Tyršova 1, CZ-746 01 Opava, Czech Republic; sevcikjan@email.cz

Medium-sized (5.0-10.0 mm), usually dark-coloured Nematocera with elongated body and legs. Eyes usually holoptic in male, separated in female; three ocelli; antenna relatively short, tapering, scape and pedicel short, flagellum with 14 segments. Wing moderately large, with a characteristic pattern of dark markings, C ending at or slightly beyond tip of R, Sc ending in C at about middle of the wing. The larvae are found in various decaying organic materials such as the stems and roots of umbelliferous plants (Hancock 1989). The common species Sylvicola cinctus (Fabricius, 1787) has also been reared from fungi (Ševčík 2001). The adults occur mainly in forest habitats, but frequently also in gardens or on windows in houses; they feed on nectar and other liquids (Krivosheina 1997).

Altogether 9 species are known to occur in Europe (de Jong 2004); 6 of them are listed in the present checklist (5 from the Czech Republic, 5 from Bohemia, 5 from Moravia, and 6 from Slovakia). Since the last version of checklist (Kovář 1997), the number of species in the Czech Republic has remained the same (1 species added for Bohemia, 1 for Moravia) while two species have been added to the fauna of Slovakia (Ševčík 2004, 2005). The species composition of the anisopodid fauna in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia is relatively well known.

The basic characteristics of the family were recently given by Krivosheina (1997). The identification of the European species is based mainly on the structure of the male or female terminalia and is possible using the keys and figures by Haenni (1997), Krivosheina and Menzel (1998), and Søli (1992). The nomenclature used in the present checklist follows that in the Fauna Europaea (de Jong 2004).

References

[1] Jong H. de 2004: Fauna Europaea: Anisopodidae. In Jong H. de (ed.): Fauna Europaea: Diptera, Nematocera. Fauna Europaea Version 1.1, http://www.faunaeur.org.

[2] Hancock E.G. 1989: Notes on the window gnats, genus Sylvicola (Diptera; Anisopodidae), in Scotland. Scottish Naturalist 1989: 3-13.

[3] Haenni J.-P. 1997: Anisopodidae (Diptera) de la faune de Suisse, avec la description d' une espece nouvelle. Mitteilungen der Schweizerischen Entomologischen Gesellschaft 70: 177-186.

[4] Kovář I. 1997: Anisopodidae. In Chvála M. (ed.): Check List of Diptera (Insecta) of the Czech and Slovak Republics. Carolinum – Charles University Press, Prague, p. 32.

[5] Krivosheina N.P. 1997: Family Anisopodidae.  In Papp L. & Darvas B. (eds): Manual of Palaearctic Diptera. Science Herald. Budapest, pp. 239-248.

[6] Krivosheina N.P. & Menzel F. 1998: The Palaearctic species of the genus Sylvicola Harris, 1776 (Diptera, Anisopodidae). Beiträge zur Entomologie 48: 201-217.

[7] Søli G.E.E. 1992: Norwegian species of Sylvicola Harris, 1776 (Diptera: Anisopodidae). Fauna Norvegica Series B 39: 49-54.

[8] Ševčík J. 2001: Diptera (excluding Mycetophilidae s. str.) associated with fungi in Czech and Slovak Republics: a survey of rearing records from 1998-2000. Acta Universitatis Carolinae Biologica 45: 157-168.

[9] Ševčík J. 2004: Faunistic records from the Czech and Slovak Republics: Diptera. Anisopodidae. Folia Facultatis Scientiarum Naturalium Universitatis Masarykianae Brunensis, Biologia 109: 323-324.

[10] Ševčík J. 2005: New records of Bolitophilidae, Mycetophilidae, Anisopodidae and Mycetobiidae (Diptera) from Slovakia. Biologia, Bratislava 60: 588, 598.