Camillidae Frey, 1921

Jan Máca

Agency for Nature Conservation and Landscape Protection of the CR, Nám. Přemysla Otakara 34, CZ-370 01 České Budějovice, Czech Republic; jan_maca@nature.cz

Adults of the European species are small (2.0- 3.0 mm), glossy black flies; arista with long rays on upper side and much shorter ones on lower side, thus closely resembling some species of Ephydridae Zetterstedt, 1837 and Drosophilidae Rondani, 1856. Unlike the European Drosophilidae and Ephydridae, costa with a row of stronger spines and inner side of fore femur with a strong thorn (like the Diastatidae Hendel, 1917, which are however more slender and never glossy black). The immature stages have been described only for an aberrant African genus (Kirk-Spriggs & Barraclough 1998). Adults occur from lowlands to highlands in non-forested areas; they are rarely collected by sweeping (except for C. atrimana, which can be regularly swept in steppe biotopes), because they usually occur near the entrances to the burrows of rabbits and small rodents (Baumann 1977). They have also been reared from decayed pigeon guano (Smith 1989). Some extra-European species are associated with the shelters of rock hyraxes (Procavia capensis) and with the colonies of troglophilic bats (Barraclough 1998).

There are about twenty described species and a considerable number of undescribed species in this small family, distributed mostly in the Afrotropical region (Barraclough 1998); 8 species in the single genus Camilla Haliday, 1838 occur in Europe (Carles-Tolrá 2004). Four species of this family are currently known from the Czech Republic (Máca 1997), only two species are known from Slovakia. Useful information concerning the European and other species has been given by (Papp 1985, 1998).

References

[1] Barraclough D.A. 1998: Katacamilla Papp, 1978, a genus of Camillidae (Diptera:Schizophora) associated with the dung of bats, birds and hyraxes in Africa and Arabian Peninsula. African Entomology 6: 159-176.

[2]  Baumann E. 1977: Untersuchungen über den Dipterenfauna subterraner Gangsysteme und Nester von Wühlmausen (Microtus, Clethrionomys) auf Wiesen der montanum Region im Naturpark Hoher Vogelsberg. Zoologische Jahrbücher, Systematik 104: 368-414.

[3] Carles-Tolrá M. 2004: Fauna Europaea: Camillidae. In Pape T. (ed.): Fauna Europaea: Diptera, Brachycera. Fauna Europaea version 1.1, http://www.faunaeur.org.

[4]  Kirk-Spriggs A.H. & Barraclough D.A. 1998:  The immature stages of Katacamilla cavernicola Papp, the first described for Camillidae. In Ismay J.W. (ed.): Abstract Volume, 4th International Congress of Dipterology, Oxford, pp. 104-105.

[5] Máca J. 1997: Camillidae. In Chvála M. (ed.): Check List of Diptera (Insecta) of the Czech and Slovak Republics, Karolinum, Praha, p. 86. 

[6] Papp L. 1985: A key of the World species of Camillidae (Diptera). Acta zoologica Hungarica 31: 217-227.

[7] Papp L. 1998: Family Camillidae. In Papp L. & Darvas B. (eds): Contributions to the Manual of Palaearctic Diptera, 3. Science Herald, Budapest, pp. 531-535.

[8]  Smith  K.G.V. 1989: An introduction to the immature stages of  British flies. Handbooks for identification of British insects 10 (14). Royal Entomological Society, London, 280 pp.