82 Phoridae. 



thoracic disc, the notopleural suture being partly vanished and the 

 prothoracic spiracles placed on the upper side; the dorsal part of 

 mesopleura hairy and with a bristle behind. Abdomen short, broad 

 and flat, especially in the female; the male hypopygium small; in 

 the female abdomen has four to six not transformed segments, the 

 rest retractile, it ends with two small lamellæ which seem sometimes 

 to be wanting. Legs somewhat short and robust in the female with 

 the femora broad or very broad, more slender in the male; posterior 

 coxæ transformed to transverse piates; tibiæ with or without single 

 bristles. Claws small, pulvilli and empodium present or wanting. 

 Wings present in the male, of the Phorid type; third vein furcated 

 or not and bare or with fme bristles; in the female wings may be 

 present, but short though otherwise mainly normal, or they are in 

 this sex wanting, or only a small rudiment is present as in Conopro- 

 sopa (perhaps a very small hairy process, present in the other genera 

 also represents wing-rudiments); when wings are present balteres 

 are also present, but the females without wings are also without 

 balteres. — It will be seen, that the females have either shortened 

 wings, and then they also possess ocelli, scutellum and balteres, 

 while the wingless females are destitute of ocelli, scutellum and 

 balteres and are less like the males, of broad, flat and oval shape 

 with shorter, more robust legs. 



The Platyphorinae include in all six genera, of which Platyphora 

 is European and also occurs in America, the others are from Africa; 

 in all there are about fifteen species; only of Platyphora and Conopro- 

 sopa the males are known; on account of the different aspect of the 

 sexes it was not until rather late that the sexes were recognised as 

 belonging together; of Platyphora Luhhocki the male was described 

 in 1877 and the female as Aenigmatias in 1890, and, though suggested 

 by several authors and first by Mik in 1898, it was not until 1914 

 that it was proved (or practically proved) that they were male and 

 female of one species (Donisthorpe, The Entomologists Record 

 XXVI, 1914, 276 and Schmitz, Berl. Entom. Zeitschr. 1915, 466), 

 and Brues likewise has lately shown (Psyche, XXV, 1919, 41) that 

 also Conoprosopa, of which only males were known, belongs to this 

 subfamily, as he got a species of this genus in copula with a typical 

 Platyphorine female. — So far known the Platyphorines are all 

 myrmecophilous. 



The developmental stages of the Phorids cannot be said to be 

 well known and of many genera they are still unknown, even if the 



