Dipteran Taxonomy

Diptera are the second most important order among flower-visiting (anthophilous) and flower-pollinating insects worldwide. Their taxonomic diversity ranges from Nematocera to Brachycera, including most families within the suborders. Especially important are Syrphidae, Bombyliidae, and Muscoidea. Other families, especially of small flies, are less appreciated and often overlooked for their associations with flowers. We have compiled records of their flower visitations to show that they may be more prevalent than usually thought. Our knowledge of anthophilous Diptera needs to be enhanced by future research concerning (i) the significance of nocturnal Nematocera and acalypterate muscoids as pollinators, (ii) the extent to which the relatively ineffective pollen-canying ability of some taxa can be compensated by the abundance of individuals, and (iii) the role of Diptera as pollinators of the first flowering plants (Angiospermae) by using phylogenetic and palaeontological evidence. Specializations in floral relationships involve the morphology of Diptera, especially of their mouthparts, nutritional requirements, and behaviour, as well as concomitant floral attributes. The South African flora has the most highly specialized relations with dipterous pollinators, but in arctic and alpine generalist fly-flower relations are important in pollination and fly nutrition.

In Colombia, like most Neotropical countries, faunistic studies on flower flies have been occasional and most of them have been primarily focused on taxonomy. Colombia is the second-most species-rich country in flower fly diversity in the Neotropics after Brazil, and has one of the highest numbers of species per unit area (2.49 per 10,000 km2), based on a review of literature and national collections. Including new data
presented here, a total of 47 genera and 300 species are recorded in Colombia. The genera Scaeva Fabricius and Lycastrirhyncha Bigot, as well as 101 species are recorded here for the first time. The altitudinal range and the distribution of the flower fly genera in Colombia are presented. A preliminary comparison of the fauna of Colombia with that of other Neotropical countries is given. A historical perspective is also
provided in order to illustrate how Colombian Syrphidae knowledge has progressed over the last 168 years. Information presented here will be useful for ongoing and future biodiversity research as well as conservation projects on Syrphidae in the Neotropical region.

A total of 95 fungus gnats species were identified from sweep net samples collected from Montenegro, Romania and Serbia during 2010–2017. A mycetophilid species, Trichonta comis Gagné, 1981, is redescribed and a key is provided for the separation of European Boletina trivittata (Meigen, 1818)-group species. Ten species from Montenegro, 27 from Romania and 1 species from Serbia are reported for the first time. The presence of Stigmatomeria crassicornis (Stannius, 1831) in Romania is verified.

Colombia has an imposing natural wealth due to its topography has many unique characteristics as a consequence of having Caribbean and Pacific shores, as well as sharing part of the Amazon basin and northern Andes mountains. Thus, many natural and biological features are due to the convergence of three biogeographical regions: Pacific, Andes and Amazonia. The Andean uplift created a complex mosaic of mountains and isolated valleys, including eleven biogeographical provinces (Morrone 2006). The Andes dominate the Colombian topography and cross the country south to north. There are three mountain ranges (Western, Central, and Eastern) with a maximum elevation of 5,775 m, and an average elevation of 2,000 m. The Magdalena and Cauca River valleys separate these ranges, that along with the Putumayo and Caquetá Rivers, the Catatumbo watershed, the Darién, Pique Hill, the Orinoquia Region (with its savannas), the Amazon region (with tropical rainforests), and some lower mountain ranges (Macarena and Chiribiquete), have generated the conditions for very high levels of endemism. This variety of conditions has resulted in an extremely diverse plant and animal biota, and in which 48% of the nation remains unexplored. Biodiversity in Colombia is a world treasure, and therefore understanding it is the first step in preserving it. Understanding insect diversity is a challenge, due to the complexity of finding species in such a diverse biological and geological settings, as well as due to the difficulty in identifying the many, often undescribed, species. Historically, Colombia has had many entomologists that have strived towards documenting this diversity and today, continues to education new researchers for this far-from-finished goal. Though there is a long tradition of entomological studies, taxonomic knowledge of insects in Colombia remains fragmented, with the Lepidoptera probably being the best known. Much work remains for the identification of most species in the Coleoptera, Hymenoptera and Diptera. These orders comprise nearly 70% of all known animal species in the country (Andrade, 1996, Amat et al. 1999, Fernández et al. 2004). Diptera in Colombia has mostly been studied in species that are relevant to health and forensic concerns, such as the Culicidae, Simuliidae, Tabanidae, and Calliphoridae. The more conspicuous flies, and larger families, including the Syrphidae, Asilidae and Bombyliidae, remain poorly known and poorly studied. Recently, efforts to collect in relatively undisturbed locations may be one of the main initiatives by the government and universities for better understanding these well-preserved areas and for conservation planning. Here, we provide a catalogue with the primary goal of providing information on Diptera diversity in Colombia. This catalogue is based on a combination of a review of the relevant literature with data from new species that will be presented here for the first time. All genus-and species-group names are listed alphabetically. Valid names are in bold type at the first mention. Synonyms when mentioned subsequently are italicized. Each published name including synonyms is given in a chronological sequence according to the scheme: the name of the species, author(s), year of description, page, genus in the original description (if different from the valid one), type-locality (or localities in the case of syntypes; updated name into brackets), information about the primary types and their deposition (and, if a lectotype, a reference to the author and date of the designation), known geographic distribution. The catalogue contains 3,135 species in 74 families from Colombia (Table 1). This adds another nine families to the Catalogue of the Diptera of the Americas South of the United States between 1966-1984 (edited by Nelson Papavero). Unfortunately, and highlighting the need for additional collecting, the families Dixidae,

Neriidae are a small family of acalyptratae flies, mostly distributed in the tropics. Very little is known about their biology, and the evolutionary relationships among species have never been evaluated. We perform the first comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the family, including 48 species from all biogeographic regions inhabited, as well as five species of Micropezidae and one Cypselosomatidae as outgroups. We build a morphological data matrix of 194 characters, including 72 continuous characters. We first explore ways to deal with the issue of scaling continuous characters, including rescaling ranges to unity and using implied weighting. We find that both strategies result in very different phylogenetic hypotheses, and that implied weighting reduces the problem of scaling, but only partially. Furthermore, using implied weighting after rescaling characters improves the congruence between partitions and results in higher values of group support. With respect to the Neriidae, we confirm the monophyly of the family and of most its genera, although we do not obtain any of the currently accepted suprageneric groups. We propose to restrict the Eoneria and Nerius groups exclusively to the Neotropical fauna, and synonymize Glyphidops subgenus Oncopsia Enderlein with Glyphidops subgenus Glyphidops Enderlein, eliminating the subgeneric divisions. This revised phylogeny presents a striking biogeographic consistency, and shows that previous main divisions of the family were based on events of convergence.

The tachinid genus Cholomyia presents Neotropical and Nearctic distribution with three species: C. acromion (Wiedemann, 1824), C. filipes (Walker, 1857), and C. inaequipes Bigot, 1884. In the present paper, all species are reviewed and redescribed, and a new species from Costa Rica is described, C. zum-badoi sp. nov. An identification key based on males is provided. For the first time, the male terminalia of all species, and the female terminalia and first instar larva of C. inaequipes are described and illustrated. Finally, based on the detailed morphological study we discuss the systematic placement of Cholomyia into Myiophasiini-Tachininae. A list of host–parasite records is synthesized.