Rhinophoridae Robineau-Desvoidy, 1863

Small to medium-sized flies, body length of European species ranging from 2.5 to 10.0 mm. Most species are black in ground-colour, very rarely metallic. Metathoracic spiracle with both anterior and posterior fringes small, subscutellum convex but never greatly swollen as in Tachinidae. Lower calypter tongue-like or oval and diverging from scutellum, proepisternal depression bare. Crosskey (1977)  discussed a number of taxonomic characters in detail and Pape (1998) provided a general conspectus of the family. There are no unambiguous adult characters for an easy differentiation from the Calliphoridae and Tachinidae. The larval morphology, however, provides strong evidence of a monophyletic taxon (Pape 1992). The eggs are white, fusiform in outline and with a flattened dorsal hatching stripe bearing a plastron (for further details see Draber-Moňko 1997). So far as is known, all species are endoparasitoids of woodlice.

Altogether 47 species are known to occur in Europe (Pape 2007, Cerreti & Pape 2007); nine are listed in the present checklist: nine in the Czech Republic (eight in Bohemia, nine in Moravia), and nine in Slovakia. Since the ECV1, the number of species has not increased. The species-richness of the rhinophorid fauna is moderately well known in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The basic characteristics of the family were given by Pape (1998) and Pape and Arnaud (2001). All the Czech species may be identified using the keys in the monograph by Herting (1961). The nomenclature in this checklist is that of the Fauna Europaea (Pape 2007).

This paper was partly supported by IRP MSM 6046070901 (Ministry of education, youth and sports).