TACHINIDAE OF AUSTRALIA 59 



Tribe GLAUROCARINI 



This is a very small tribe that is confined to the Old World tropics and subtropics 

 and contains only the two genera Glaurocara Thomson and Doddiana Curran; 

 other supposed Old World genera have been described (Oestrocharis Villeneuve, 

 Semisuturia Malloch and Oestrocara Townsend) but these are now treated as 

 synonyms (Crosskey, 1962). Townsend (1936) placed several New World genera 

 in the tribe but none of these have the fused abdominal tergites of true Glaurocarini 

 and evidently do not belong. Doddiana occurs from Java to Queensland and 

 New South Wales, and Glaurocara occurs in Malaya, the south-east Asian archipelago, 

 the Ethiopian Region and Mauritius; Mauritius is the type-locality of G. flava 

 (type-species of Glaurocara) and is also a locality into which Doddiana mellea 

 (Wiedemann) has been unsuccessfully introduced from Java for control of sugar-cane 

 moth borer. 



The only host recorded for the genus Doddiana is the sugar-cane moth borer 

 Chilo sacchariphagus (Bojer) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), which is apparently attacked 

 by Doddiana mellea in Java. This is a curious record, as Doddiana is without 

 doubt very closely allied to Glaurocara and the type-species of this genus, viz. 

 G. flava Thomson from Africa, is a parasite of nocturnally active tettigoniid 

 Orthoptera (Crosskey, 19656). It is odd that species of two such similar genera 

 as Doddiana and Glaurocara should attack hosts as different as a pyralid and a 

 bush-cricket. It seems probable, however, that Orthoptera are the normal hosts 

 of the Glaurocarini, as Glaurocara first-stage larva is a perfect planidium closely 

 similar to that of the Ormiini and the ormiines (so far as is known) are exclusively 

 parasites of Grylloidea and Tettigonioidea. Glaurocara also resembles the Ormiini 

 in being nocturnally active and in having the pallid luteous yellow coloration 

 characteristic of night-flying Diptera, and its female reproductive system is of 

 Townsend's type XXXII which is elsewhere found only in the Ormiini. On these 

 grounds it appears that the Glaurocarini are closely allied to the Ormiini, although 

 they differ obviously from the latter tribe by having the sutures between the 

 abdominal segments largely fused above and in having a normal prosternum (without 

 trace of the inflation of the prosternal region as occurs in Ormiini). 



The chief characteristics of the tribe are as follows. Head unusually small for body size; 

 eyes usually with some very minute sparse hairing (appearing bare at first glance) ; <J head 

 with eyes strongly approximated and frons reduced but not holoptic; ocelli present, usually 

 rather raised; inner vertical setae present in both sexes, usually convergent or crossed; $ 

 without proclinate orbital setae, § with two pairs (very strong) ; °- with one pair of reclinate 

 orbital setae; parafacials bare; frontal setae moderately strong, rows reaching to a level with 

 first antennal segment; epistome flat, invisible in profile, face rather flat; oral cavity, proboscis 

 and palpi very small; vibrissae present, inserted about level with or just above epistomal 

 margin; facial ridges with a few setulae above vibrissae, otherwise bare; genal dilation weak, 

 only reaching at most half way forwards on the genal region, usually bearing some rather 

 strong setae or setulae (Text-fig. 34) ; occiput moderately flat above ; antennae small (length 

 about half the eye height), inserted about on a level with eye middle; arista with short or 

 long pubescence; prosternum not inflated, bare, prosternal membrane bare; propleuron bare; 

 prostigmatic and propleural setae very strong; humeral callus with two strong setae (sometimes 

 a weak third seta present mesad of main two) ; mesonotal chaetotaxy usually as in Text-fig. 57; 

 o + 2 or o + 3 ia setae; 2 + 3 dc setae; acr setae variable; pra seta weak or absent, second 



