Family TACHINIDAE Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830

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Introduction

Family Tachinidae is one of the largest Diptera families. There are some 8200 species described worldwide, found in all zoogeographic regions.The Australian tachinid fauna currently consists of 497 described species from 145 genera. Around 40% of genera are endemic.

Although adult tachinid flies are typically coloured grey-black and are strongly bristled, there is a huge morphological diversity amongst species. Some species are brightly metallic, others are marked with interesting patterning. All Tachinidae are parasitoids, particularly targeting larval insects of the orders Lepidoptera, Coleoptera and Hymenoptera, as well as adult Hemiptera, Coleoptera and some orthopteroid orders. They are not usually associated with parasitism of other Diptera.

Being such a huge and diverse group, the Tachinidae have presented numerous problems for taxonomic workers. As such, the family is still very much a work in progress. This catalogue aims to document the current status of the taxonomy for the Australian tachinids. However, the knowledge base is somewhat incomplete. Several species are known from single specimens with doubtful provenance and the institutional location of some types and some vague locality data also need to be verified. Additions to this dataset would be welcomed. Major references for the Australian Tachinidae include Evenhuis (2012), Crosskey (1966, 1973 [2 publications], 1976), Barraclough (1992) and Cantrell (1983, 1984, 1985 [3 publications]) and more recently Sun and Marshall (2003). Ultimately, major revisions of a number of groups need to be carried out to form a more comprehensive understanding of this complex taxonomic group.

J.E. O'Hara published a history of tachinid classification (O'Hara 2013) and Cerretti et al. (2014) inferred a phylogeny through ananlyses of morphological data.

 

General References

Barraclough, D.A. 1992. The systematics of the Australasian Dexiini (Diptera: Tachinidae: Dexiinae) with revisions of endemic genera. Invertebrate Taxonomy 6: 1127­-1371 [Date published 13 November]

Cantrell, B.K. 1983. Revision of the Australian species of Euthera Loew (Diptera: Tachinidae). Journal of the Australian Entomological Society 22: 53-59 [Date published 28 February]

Cantrell, B.K. 1984. Synopsis of the Australian Phasiinae, including revisions of Gerocyptera Townsend and the Australian species of Cylindromyia Meigen (Diptera: Tachinidae). Australian Journal of Zoology Supplementary Series 102. 60 p [Date published 24 September]

Cantrell, B.K. 1985. A revision of the Australian species of Exorista Meigen, with notes on the other genera of Australian Exoristini (Diptera: Tachinidae). Australian Journal of Zoology 33: 547-576 [Date published 23 August]

Cantrell, B.K. 1985. Revision of Chaetophthalmus Brauer & Bergenstamm and the Australian species of Linnaemya Robineau-Desvoidy (Diptera: Tachinidae). Australian Journal of Zoology 33: 55-99 [Date published 28 February]

Cantrell, B.K. 1985. Revision of the Australian species of Carcelia Robineau-Desvoidy, with notes on the remaining genera of Australian Carceliini (Diptera: Tachinidae). Australian Journal of Zoology 33: 891-932 [Date published 8 November]

Cerretti, P., O'Hara, J.E., Montgomery Wood, D., & Shima, H., Inclan, Diego J. & Stiremen, J.O. III 2014. Signal through the noise? Phylogeny of the Tachinidae (Dipetera) as inferred from morphological evidence. Systematic Entomology 39: 335-353

Crosskey, R.W. 1966. New generic and specific synonymy in Australian Tachinidae (Diptera). Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society of London (B) 35: [79-104] correctly 101-110

Crosskey, R.W. 1973. A conspectus of the Tachinidae (Diptera) of Australia, including keys to the supraspecific taxa and taxonomic and host catalogues. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Entomol. Suppl. 21: 1-221

Crosskey, R.W. 1973. A revisionary classification of the Rutiliini (Diptera: Tachinidae), with keys to the described species. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Entomology (Supplement) 19: 1-167 [Date published 22 February]

Crosskey, R.W. 1976. A taxonomic conspectus of the Tachinidae (Diptera) of the Oriental region. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Entomology Supplement 26: 3-357

Evenhuis, N.L. [Originally] by Cantrell, B.K. & Crosskey, R.W. 7 June 2012. Family Tachinidae. In Evenhuis, N.L. (ed.) Catalog of the Diptera of the Australasian and Oceanian Regions. http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/aocat/tachinidae.html

O'Hara, J.E. 2013. History of tachinid classification (Diptera, Tachinidae). ZooKeys 316: 1–34

Sun, X. in Sun, X. & Marshall, S.A. 2003. Systematics of Phasia Latreille (Diptera: Tachinidae). Zootaxa 276: 1-320

Winkler, I.S., Blaschke, J.D., Davis, D.J., Stireman, J.O., O'Hara, J.E., Cerretti, P. & Moulton, J.K. 2015. Explosive radiation or uninformative genes? Origin and early diversification of tachinid flies (Diptera: Tachinidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 88: 38–54

 

History of changes

Published	As part of group	Action Date	Action Type	Compiler(s)
01-Feb-2019	DIPTERA Linnaeus, 1758	09-Jan-2019	MODIFIED
02-Feb-2018		15-Apr-2015	MODIFIED
02-Feb-2018		04-Oct-2012	MODIFIED
		12-Feb-2010	(import)