Family MUSCIDAE Latreille, 1802

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Introduction

The very familiar Australian muscids are the house fly and bush fly. In total, though, 37 genera and 185 species are recorded for Australia. General information on the family, and broad distributions of taxa are available from Hamilton et al. (2006) and Evenhuis's (2007) online Catalog of the Diptera of the Australasian and Oceanian Regions.

Haseyama et al. (2015) stated that they " …reject the traditional classification of the Muscidae. Based on our broad examination of the family, we propose a new classification with three subfamilies and we abandon the concept of tribes." Their three subfamilies were Muscinae, Cyrtoneurininae and Mydaeinae, as they excluded all tribes, and the additional subfamilies previously recognised in the Australian Faunal Directory. They left a number of genera in "Muscidae incertae sedis" (here assigned to "Subfamily Unplaced").

More recently, Grzywacz et al. (2021) provided a revised classification of the family based on phylogenomic data, which included tribes, confirmed the subfamily placement of several unplaced genera and other Australian genera, and reinstated the subfamily Reinwardtiinae.

General References

Evenhuis, N.L. (ed.) 2007. Family Muscidae. In, Catalog of the Diptera of the Australasian and Oceanian Regions. (online version).

Grzywacz, A., Trzeciak, P., Wiegmann,B.M., Cassel, B.K., Pape, T., Walczak, K., Bystrowski, C., Nelson, L., & Piwczyński, M. 2021. Towards a new classification of Muscidae (Diptera): a comparison of hypotheses based on multiple molecular phylogenetic approaches. Systematic Entomology 46: 508-525

Hamilton, J. et al. 2006. On the Fly, The interactive atlas and key to Australian fly families. [CD-Rom] CBIT & Australian Biological Resources Study, Brisbane & Canberra.

Haseyama, K.L.F., Wiegemann, B.M., Almeida, E.A.B. & de Carvalho, C.J.B. 2015. Say goodbye to tribes in the new house fly classification: A new molecular phylogenetic analysis and an updated biogeographical narrative for the Muscidae (Diptera). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 89: 1-12

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