Trichoceridae Rondani, 1841

The family comprises uniformly dark-coloured species, mostly resembling small or medium-sized Limoniidae and differing from all other Tipulomorpha (Limoniidae, Pediciidae, Tipulidae, Cylindrotomidae) by the presence of ocelli and by vein A2 being short, mostly abruptly bent towards the wing margin. The female ovipositor is more or less curved downwards. The larvae are terrestrial, living in moist soil, decaying plants, mushrooms, animal droppings, etc. Adults are frequently to be found in damp places. Many Trichocera Meigen, 1803 produce swarms of predominantly male specimens. As to the species diversity, their occurrence in temperate Europe is strikingly concentrated in the mountains and is often restricted to late autumn. Some Trichocera species appear throughout winter. Diazosma Bergroth, 1913 occurs only in summer.

Altogether 50 species are known to occur in Europe (Krzemińska 2007). 35 species are listed in the present checklist: 30 from the Czech Republic (19 in Bohemia and 30 in Moravia) and 32 from Slovakia. Compared with the PCV2, 11 species have been added for the Czech Republic (6 in Bohemia and 11 in Moravia), and 11 species for Slovakia. Some names have been changed for reasons that are noted in the checklist. The Czech and Slovak faunas of the Trichoceridae are comparatively well-investigated, but further species that are known to occur elsewhere in Europe or are still unnamed may well be added to the faunas.

Recently, as more attention has been paid to the European Trichoceridae, the descriptions of new species has considerably increased the number of known species so that previous keys, such as those by Edwards (1938), Dahl (1966), and others, have become largely out-of-date. The Czech and Slovak members of the most species-rich T. saltator group were keyed by Starý (1999a). The subgeneric classification of the genus Trichocera was re-assessed by Starý (1998), and that classification is adopted here. Subsequently, another subgenus of Trichocera, Saltrichocera Krzemińska, 2002, was erected (Krzemińska 2002) for the species of the T. saltator group, but that concept is not accepted here for the time being as it is not equally applicable to all the species in the checklist.