Family PIPUNCULIDAE Walker, 1824

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Family PIPUNCULIDAE Walker, 1824

Big-headed Flies

Compiler and date details

February 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)

Introduction

Pipunculidae is a large family of flies already known from at least 1300 species worldwide. It is estimated that this number may eventually increase to a total of approximately 2000 species. There are currently 79 described species from 11 genera for the Australian fauna. It is possible that this represents only one third of the total number of species from this family in Australia.

Early taxonomy study of Pipunculidae in Australia was predominantly by Perkins (1905, 1906) and later by Hardy (1964). More recent works have added new species - Skevington (1999, 2001, 2002) and phylogenetic studies of the higher classification (Skevington & Yeates, 2001, Skevington et al., 2007)

The common name 'big-headed flies' is an apt title, with flies in this family having distinctively large rounded eyes.

Species belonging to this family are exclusively parasitoids of Hemiptera, particularly of the sub-order Auchenorrhyncha from families such as Cicadellidae, Delphacidae and Cercopidae. As a consequence, these flies are of interest as biological contol agents for leafhoppers that cause damage to crops such as rice and sugar cane.