Atelestidae Hennig, 1970

Milan Chvála

Department of Zoology, Charles University Prague, CZ-128 44 Praha 2, Czech Republic; mchvala@natur.cuni.cz

The family Atelestidae includes small greyish dusted species with body approximately 2.0-3.0 mm long, wing with well-developed axillary lobe and alula, wholly covered with small microtrichia, unforked vein R4+5, and a large anal cell, at least as long as basal cells. The male genitalia are symmetrical and not rotated. It is a monophyletic group of flies with 4 genera and only a few recent species, originally classified within the cyclorrhaphous family Platypezidae (Atelestus), then as genera of “uncertain systematic position” close to or in the paraphyletic family Empididae s. lato, and only very recently (Chvála 1983) erected as a separate family in the superfamily Empidoidea.

Of the 4 European species of the Atelestidae which are listed in the first on-line version of the Fauna Europaea (Chvála 2004), three species are listed in the recent version of the checklist; all 3 are known in the Czech Republic, and 2 in Slovakia. The recent version includes 2 new records for Moravia, one (Meghyperus sudeticus) representing at the same time a new record for the Czech Republic.

References

[1] Barták M. & Kubík Š. 2006: Atelestidae In Barták M. & Kubík Š. (eds): Diptera of Podyjí National Park and its Environs. Česká zemědělská univerzita v Praze, 2005, pp.182-183.

[2] Chvála M. 1983: The Empidoidea (Diptera) of Fennoscandia and Denmark. II. General Part. The families Hybotidae, Atelestidae and Microphoridae. Fauna Entomologica Scandinavica, Vol. 12,  Scand. Sci. Press Ltd., Klampenborg, Denmark. 279 pp.

[3] Chvála M. 2004: Fauna Europea: Atelestidae. In Pape T. (ed.): Fauna Europaea, Brachycera. Fauna Europaea version 1.1, http://www.faunauer.org.

[4] Roháček J., Barták M. & Zuska J. 1986: Faunistic records from Czechoslovakia. Diptera: Atelestidae, Micropezidae, Otitidae, Piophilidae, Sepsidae, Acartophthalmiidae, Anthomyzidae, Asteiidae. Acta entomologica bohemoslovaca 83: 230-231.