|
Small to large (3.0-11.0 mm), often robust, dark-coloured flies,
either with brown wings with numerous hyaline dots and with stout,
microtrichose body and usually a bright yellow ventral part of the
abdomen, or with dark banded or spotted wings and a shining, narrow
body. Head rounded to distinctly flattened; ocelli present, arista
pubescent or bare; ocellar and postvertical (potsocellar) setae
reduced or absent; true vibrissae absent; 1-2 fronto-orbital setae,
interfrontal setulae scattered. Wing with a dark pattern, either
transversely banded (Rivellia) or dark and densely pale
spotted (Platystoma). Costa with a humeral break, subcosta
complete; bm-cu present; cell cup closed by a straight or arcuate
vein, without a posteroapical pointed lobe. No dorsal preapical
setae on tibiae. Male abdomen and postabdomen similar to those in
the Tephritidae: sternite 6 very narrow, bare, tergite 6 absent,
gonostylus with 1-2 thickened tooth-like prensisetae, phallus coiled
in a pocket underneath 5th tergite at rest, distiphallus very long,
apically with large glans, bearing 2-3 tubes called apical filaments.
Female abdomen usually with 6th tergite (and often 4th and 5th
tergites) strongly reduced; postabdomen as described for Ulidiidae.
The larvae are either saprophagous in rotting vegetation or are
associated with root nodules in legumes (Rivellia). Adults
occur in meadows and grassland swamps with legumes (Rivellia)
or in warm steppe to forest-steppe habitats (Platystoma).
Altogether twenty species in two genera, including nine taxa considered to be
subspecies, are known to occur in Europe (Korneyev
2007); six species (and one subspecies) are included in the present
checklist (five in the Czech Republic, three in Bohemia, five in Moravia, and
six plus one subspecies in Slovakia). Since the last version of the
checklist, the number of species has not changed. The family is
characterized in detail by McAlpine (1998)
and Korneyev (2001)
who also gave keys to the Palaearctic genera. The Central European
species of Platystomatidae can be identified using the papers by
Hennig (1945),
Lyneborg (1964)
or Soós (1980).
The nomenclature of this checklist follows that in the Fauna
Europaea (Korneyev
2007).
|
