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Small (3.5-5.5 mm), slender blackish flies with yellowish legs and
somewhat flattened thorax and abdomen. Head rounded, frons rather
wide, occiput swollen. Arista short-pubescent, ocelli present;
ocellar setae developed, postvertical (postocellar) setae divergent,
two fronto-orbital setae; interfrontal setulae and vibrissae absent.
Wing hyaline, often with diffuse and somewhat darkened spots. C with
a subcostal break; Sc incomplete, not reaching C, cells bm and cup
present, the latter closed by convex CuA2. Tibiae without
dorsal preapical setae. Gonostyli fused to epandrium; hypandrium
weakly sclerotized; aedeagus long, slender, epiphallus developed.
Terminal segments of female postabdomen forming a slender soft
ovipositor. The larvae are xylosaprophagous and have been reared
from under the bark of rotting logs from deciduous trees; puparia
are formed in the bast under dead bark. The adults occur on low
vegetation in wet deciduous forests near the breeding sites of the
larvae.
The family is probably of Oriental origin; two genera are known
worldwide and the majority of species are recorded from the Oriental
and East Palaearctic regions (Iwasa
1998,
Papp 2006). Only one genus,
Strongylophthalmyia Heller, 1902,
with two species, occurs in Europe (Pape
2007); one species has been recorded from
the Czech Republic (both Bohemia and Moravia) and Slovakia, and was
listed in the previous version
of the checklist. The family is
treated in detail by Iwasa (1998);
the European species can be recognized by the key in Krivosheina (1981).
The nomenclature follows that of Krivosheina (1984).
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