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Small to medium-sized (2.0-8.0 mm), slender,
blackish-brown to yellow flies. Wing usually partly darkened or
patterned; legs yellow or variably darkened, face, gena and legs
sometimes sexually dichroic. Head broader than long, usually with
strong cephalic bristles, most of the orbitals usually reclinate,
vibrissa long and robust. The family forms the most generalised
group of the Opomyzoidea, retaining a number of plesiomorphic
features (arista more or less apical, most complete cephalic
chaetotaxy and ving venation, C with an indistinct break at apex of
Sc that is widely separated from R1) and a few apomorphic
characters such as pedicel with a sharp angular lobe on external
distal margin, postverticals situated very close together and
prosternum setulose.
Clusiidae are typical inhabitants of forests with
a rich supply of dead tree wood. The xylosaprophagous larvae develop
in the decayed wood of fallen trunks and stumps, pupariate inside
the rotten wood and overwinter in the pupal stage. The adult flies
can best be observed sitting or walking on dead tree trunks; they
fly away only when disturbed but soon return to the same or the
nearest convenient log.
Fourteen species have been recorded in Europe (Roháček
& Merz 2007); eleven of them are listed in the present checklist:
eleven
in the Czech Republic (eleven in Bohemia, ten
in Moravia), and nine in
Slovakia. Since the ECV1, the number of
species in the Czech Republic and Slovakia has not been changed. The Clusiidae are
relatively well known in the Czech Republic but slightly less so in
Slovakia. The family was characterised in detail by Sasakawa (1998)
who also gave a key to Palaearctic genera. There is no recent
literature for the identification of all the European species;
however, they can be identified using the keys compiled by
Stackelberg (1970),
Soós (1981)
and Stubbs (1982).
The species occurring in the Czech Republic and Slovakia have been
treated faunistically by Roháček (1995),
including all the previously published data; for papers published
subsequently, see Roháček and Barták (2000).
The nomenclature corresponds with that in the Fauna Europaea
(Roháček
& Merz 2007), with the subfamily classification proposed by Lonsdale and Marshall (2006).
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