MICROPTEROUS FLY. 85 



DESCRIPTION OF A MICROPTEROUS FLY OF THE FAMILY 

 PHORIDiE ASSOCIATED WITH ANTS. 



By N. Annandale, D.Sc, Indian Museum. 



IN August, 1911, Mr. E. E. Green found at Peradeniya, 

 associated with predaceous ants of the genus Lobopelta, a 

 minute micropterous insect, which he recognized as belonging 

 to the Dipterous family Phoridse. He has been kind enough to 

 entrust me with its description in Spolia Zeylanica. 



The Phoridse* are a family as yet little known so far as the 

 Oriental forms are concerned, but Bruesf has described several 

 species from India, and others will shortly be described by Brunetti, 

 probably in the " Records of the Indian Museum." Although the 

 majority of the species are provided with ample wings and lead an 

 active life, as a rule feeding on rotting animal and vegetable matter, 

 a considerable number have the wings degenerate or altogether 

 absent. Some of these forms feed on carrion or the sHme of snails, 

 while others live as parasites or guests in the nests of ants or termites. 

 The apterous and micropterous forms are very unlike ordinary flies 

 in appearance, rather resembling fleas or minute cockroaches. 

 Certain genera, indeed, have been separated off from the Phoridse 

 by Wandolleck,{ who regards them as a distinct family (Stetho- 

 pathidse) related to the fleas. In the case of one of these genera, 

 however, namely Ghonoce'phalus , Becker§ has associated a winged 

 and not very remarkable male with a wingless and otherwise 

 degenerate female, while in several other genera only the female 

 is known. 



In general appearance Mr. Green's specimen resembles a female 

 of ChonocepJmhis , a species of which (only the male) has been found 

 in the Bombay Presidency, and is described by Brues ; but in 

 structure it is more closely allied to Psyllomyia, an African genus, of 

 which the only known species (P. testacea) was described by Loew|| 

 many years ago, and has not apparently been re-discovered. It 

 was taken in the nest of ants belonging to the genus Dorylus. 



It seems probable that the micropterous and apterous species of 

 Phoridse will utimately be found to fall naturally into several 



* See Brues in Genera Insectorum : Diptera, Fam. Phoridse, fasc. 44 (1906). 

 t Ann. Nat. Mus. Hungarici, III., p. 539 (1905). 

 t Zool. Jahrb. (Syst. Abth.), XL, p. 412 (1898). 



I " Die Phoriden," Abh. k. k. zool.-bot. Gesch. Wien, p. 86 (1901). 



II Wien ent. Monatschr., I., p. 54, plate I., figs. 22-25 (1857). 



