Diadocidiidae Winnertz, 1863

Jan Ševčík¹, Vladimír Košel²

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

²Department of Zoology, Komenský University, Mlynská dolina, SK-842 15 Bratislava, Slovakia; kosel@fns.uniba.sk

Small (2.0-6.0 mm), yellowish to dark brown Nematocera. Head with three ocelli; antenna with scape and pedicel short, flagellum with 14 segments. Thorax hump-backed, legs with long coxae, abdomen narrow. Wings without dark markings, wing membrane covered with macrotrichia. Sc ending in C or free, cross-veins R-M and M-Cu in a straight vertical line. The larvae are found in decaying wood, probably feeding on mycelia (Zaitzev 1994). The adults occur mainly in forest habitats in shaded places alongside streams and on tree trunks.

The family Diadocidiidae belongs to the superfamily Sciaroidea, but was formerly included in the Mycetophilidae. It is usually accepted that this family contains only one genus, Diadocidia Ruthe, 1831. There are about 16 described species in the world (Papp & Ševčík 2005), 6 of which are known to occur in Europe (Chandler 2004, Papp 2003); 5 species are listed in the present checklist (5 from the Czech Republic, 4 in Bohemia, 5 in Moravia, and 5 from Slovakia). Since the last version of the checklist (Košel & Martinovský 1997), two species have been added to the Czech Republic (1 species for Bohemia, 2 for Moravia), and two species have been added to the fauna of Slovakia (Ševčík 2001, 2004, 2006). The species composition of the Diadocidiidae in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia is thus relatively well known.

The basic characteristics of the family were recently given by Krivosheina (1988), Søli et al. (2000) and Zaitzev (1994). The identification of the European species is possible using the keys and figures by Laštovka and Matile (1972), Papp (2003)  and Zaitzev (1994). The nomenclature used in the present checklist follows that in the Fauna Europaea (Chandler 2004).

References

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

[2] Košel V. & Martinovský J. 1997: Diadocidiidae. In Chvála M. (ed.): Check List of Diptera (Insecta) of the Czech and Slovak Republics. Karolinum – Charles University Press, Prague, p. 18.

[3] Krivosheina N.P. 1988: Family Diadocidiidae. In Soós Á. & Papp L. (eds): Catalogue of Palaearctic Diptera. Vol.3, Ceratopogonidae – Mycetophilidae. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, pp. 210–211.

[4] Laštovka P. & Matile L. 1972: Révision des Diadocidia Holarctiques [Dipt. Mycetophilidae]. Annales de la Societé entomologique de France (N. S.) 8: 205-223.

[5] Papp L. 2003: Further additions and corrections to the Hungarian checklist (Diptera). Folia entomologica hungarica 64: 309-339.

[6] Papp L. & Ševčík J. 2005: New taxa of Diadocidiidae (Diptera) from the Oriental region. Acta Zoologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 51: 329-341.

[7] Søli G.E.E., Vockeroth J.R. & Matile L. 2000: A.4. Families of Sciaroidea. In Papp L. & Darvas B. (eds): Manual of Palaearctic Diptera. Appendix. Science Herald, Budapest, pp. 49–92.

[8] Ševčík J. 2001: New records of Diadocidiidae, Keroplatidae and Mycetophilidae (Diptera: Sciaroidea) from the Czech Republic. Časopis Slezského zemského muzea, Opava (A) 50: 159-169.

[9] Ševčík J. 2004: New data on Sciaroidea (Diptera) from the Czech and Slovak Republics, with descriptions of seven new species of Mycetophilidae. Časopis Slezského zemského muzea, Opava (A) 53: 49-74.

[10] Ševčík J. 2006: Faunistic records from the Czech and Slovak Republics. Diadocidiidae. In Kinkorová J. (ed.): Dipterologica bohemoslovaca, Vol. 13. Acta Universitatis Carolinae – Biologica 50: 136.

[11] Zaitzev A.I. 1994: Fungus gnats of the fauna of Russia and adjacent regions. Part 1. Nauka, Moscow, 288 pp.