Diptera Brachycera and Athericera of the Fiji Islands : based on material in the British Museum (Natural History) / by Mario Bezzi.

  • Bezzi, Mario, 1868-1927.
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Diptera Brachycera and Athericera of the Fiji Islands : based on material in the British Museum (Natural History) / by Mario Bezzi. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Tasmania. It was found also necessary to compare the descrip¬ tions of a large number of species belonging to Formosa, the Philippines and the Malayan Islands in general; as well as those recorded from distant islands, such as the Seychelles, Rodriguez, the Canaries, Madeira and the West Indies, some curious co¬ incidences being revealed in the process. PART I. GENERAL. Island life being always interesting, some general observations may possibly be of value, especially in view of the intimate rela¬ tions that exist between certain Diptera and Man, domestic animals, and cultivated plants. It is to be remarked in the first place that, among the Fijian Diptera, the Orthorrhapha Brachycera are much less numerous (sixty species only) than the Cyclorrhapha Athericera (one hundred and seventy-nine species), the former comprising 25-2% and the latter 74-8% of the species dealt with. The Brachycera include no species associated with Man and are mostly weak flyers; but even the powerful flyers, like some Tabanidae and Asilidae, seem to have a restricted area of distribution, so that 83-3% of the Brachycera are endemic species. A similar fact was pointed out for the Hawaiian Islands by Grimshaw,* and this seems to be a peculiarity of the Islands of the Pacific Ocean. In the Cyclorrhapha Athericera the Myiodaria are markedly preponderant (one hundred and sixty-one species), being about 90% of the group, or 67-2% of all the observed species. The Myiodaria Inferiora (or Acalyptera) are also very dominant, forming 67-5% of all the Myiodaria, or 45-3% of the whole col¬ lection. This last fact is a very striking feature of the Fijian Dipterous fauna; it has likewise been observed in the Hawaiian Islands. The best represented families among the Brachycera are the Stratiomyiidae, with twenty-six species, and the Dolichopodidae with eighteen. The former are eminently characteristic, and include twenty-three new species and six new genera; they are weak flyers, and thus are all certainly endemic. Among the Cyclorrhapha, the families richest in species are the Syrphidae (with thirteen species), the Ortalidae (with fourteen), the Trypetidae (with seventeen), the Lauxaniidae (with nineteen), the Chloropidae (with eighteen), the Muscidae (with twenty-two), and the Tachinidae (with eighteen). But the most characteristic are the Lauxaniidae, of which all the species are new and probably endemic; a noteworthy fact, because in other islands the dominant family is the Drosophilidae, as is especially evident in the Hawaiian * Fauna Iluwaiiensiu, iii, pt. i, Diptera, p. 2, 1901.
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