Bombyliidae Latreille, 1802

The family Bombyliidae includes several significantly differentiated subfamilies. Many different opinions concerning their taxonomic status and position have been formulated in last few decades (e.g. Greathead & Evenhuis 1997, Zaitzev 1991). In the PCV2 (Bosák 1997a, b), the Phthiriidae was ranked as a separate family, however, here we are again classifying the Phthiriinae as a subfamily of the family Bombyliidae (c. f. Bosák 2006), in agreement with the overall approach to the family within the framework of the Fauna Europaea (Greathead 2007).

Body size of adults ranging from 0.9 to 27.0 mm. Body in most cases covered with hairs, bristles or pollinosity. Wings absolutely hyaline or with diverse colour patterns frequently covering the entire wing surface. Head rounded and convex anteriorly; occiput flat or tumid with a single occipital foramen or concave with occipital foramen divided and with a deep groove behind the ocellar triangle. Ocelli present. Proboscis short (Anthracinae, Lomatiinae) to long, as much as four times as long as head (e.g. Bombyliinae, Phthiriinae). Legs slender and long, empodium absent, and pulvilli present or absent. Thorax uniform in structure. Abdomen wide, rounded, cylindrical or short to elongate-conical. The adult morphology is treated in detail in a number of papers (e.g. Greathead & Evenhuis 1997, Hull 1973). The adults are heliophilous and suck nectar from flowers. The larvae are parasites or hyperparasites, and their hosts are various insect species from the orders Coleoptera, Diptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Neuroptera and Orthoptera.

The total number of species worldwide is approximately 4000. Altogether 335 species of the family are currently known from Europe (Greathead 2007). The preset checklist consists of 55 species from the Czech Republic and Slovakia: 51 from the Czech Republic (43 from Bohemia, 43 from Moravia), and 47 from Slovakia (Bosák 1997a, b, 2006, Čelechovský 2007,  Greathead et al. 2005). The species-richness of the bee-fly fauna is well known in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.