Family CONOPIDAE Latreille, 1802

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Family CONOPIDAE Latreille, 1802

Thick-headed Flies

Compiler and date details

September 2010 - Scott Ginn, Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia

2007 - R. Johnson, data taken from Evenhuis, N.L. Catalog of the Diptera of the Australasian and Oceanian Regions (accessed 2007)

Conopsaires Latreille, P.A. 1802. Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière des Crustacés et des Insectes. Ouvrage faisant suite à l’histoire naturelle générale et particulière, composée par Leclerc de Buffon, et rédigée par C.S. Sonnini, membre de plusieurs sociétés savantes. Familles naturelles des genres. Tome troisième. Paris : F. Dufart xii + 13–467 + [1] pp. [An "X" (title page = 1802)] [442].
Type genus:
Conops Linnaeus, 1758.

Introduction

Conopidae are a family of flies numbering some 800 species described worldwide. Nineteen genera within four subfamilies are recognised in the Australian fauna, among which 100 species have been described. Many conopids resemble wasps and syrphid flies, being black with yellow to orange bands or markings. Conopid larvae are mostly internal parasites of the wasps that their adults mimic. Other species are known to parasitise bees, flies and orthopteroids. The conopid head is generally large, being wider than the thorax, and thus earning them the common name of 'thick-headed flies'.

A number of taxonomic works have been published dealing with the Australian conopid fauna. Earlier workers include Kröber (1915, 1939, 1940) and Camras (1955, 1961). Smith (1979) described three new species in the genus Stylogaster. Schneider (2010) most recently carried out a major review of the whole family including 45 new species, a new subfamily Notoconopinae, and four new genera — Atrichoparia, Camrasiconops, Setosiconops and Tanyconops. No tribal classification has been used for the Australian fauna listed here, as there are characters in the local fauna that do not conform with proposed tribal classification for Nearctic Conopidae. A review of the higher classification of Conopidae, particularly at subfamily and tribal level is needed to resolve these relationships.

Historically the position of the family in the order Diptera has been subject to some conjecture, derived mostly from the syrphid-like characters of some species and whether these were secondarily acquired features. The parasitic life cycle is also thought to have had an influence on some chraracter states. Family Conopidae is placed here in the superfamily Conopoidea.