Phoridae

Checklist of Diptera of the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Phoridae Latreille, 1796

Bohuslav Mocek

East Bohemian Museum, Eliščino nábřeží 465, CZ-500 01 Hradec Králové, Czech Republic; b.mocek@muzeumhk.cz

Small to very small (0.4-5.5 mm) hump-backed flies, yellowish-brown to black in colour and with a characteristically simplified wing venation: the anterior series of veins (costa and radial veins) are thick, and the postradial sections (medial and anal veins) are fine and unforked. No cross-veins in the wing apart from the humeral vein. Antenna long-aristate, the bristle apical to dorsal. Maxillary palps large, usually spatulate and bristled. Abdomen typically with tergites on the first six segments and typically without sternites. The adults are found in all types of terrestrial habitats, particularly in forests and meadows but also in steppe-like and xerothermic sites. The larval biology and food preferences are very varied. The immature stages are mostly polysaprophagous or parasitic. The parasitic forms are often found in the nests of ants and termites; others have been recorded from Coccinellidae, social Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, earthworms, land snails, and Diplopoda. The natural history of some species reared from dung, carrion, dead arthropods, fungi, or the nests of wasps and/or bumble-bees can be interpreted as facultative predation or saprophagy. Some fungus breeders feed on the fungi but others are obligate predators or parasitoids of other fungus feeders such as larval Sciaridae. For most species, the larval natural history is not known. Data on the biology of the family were reviewed by Disney (1994).

Altogether 605 species are known to occur in Europe (Weber 2004); 271 are listed in the present checklist (227 in the Czech Republic, 171 in Bohemia, 199 in Moravia, and 200 in Slovakia). Since the last version of checklist, the number of species in the Czech Republic has increased by 14 (7 in Bohemia and 29 in Moravia) and in Slovakia by 4 species. The species-richness of the phorid fauna is well known in the Czech Republic but poorly so in Slovakia, but the list of Megaselia species is only tentative due to the difficult taxonomy of this huge genus.

There is no monograph of this family for the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The world genera of the Phoridae can be identified with the key in Disney (1994) which also includes a guide to the literature for species identification, gives the number of known species in each genus, and provides references to the relevant keys or descriptions. A more recent key to European genera is given by Disney (1998) and an updated guide to the identification literature for each genus by same author (Disney 2003a). The monograph published by several authors in Lindner's monographic series (Schmitz 1938-1958, Schmitz & Beyer 1965, Schmitz & Delage 1974), though incomplete, is a basic manual for the determination of most of the European species. Disney (1983, 1989) has provided keys for the identification of British species which are also applicable to the fauna of Central Europe. The Palaearctic or European species of some genera are keyed e.g. by Disney (1990, 1993, 2000, 2002, 2003b), Disney and Beuk (1997), Brown (1995), Mostovski and Mikhailovskaya (2003). The taxonomy of the giant genus Megaselia (more than 1300 species worldwide) is still insufficiently known.