TACHINIDAE OF AUSTRALIA 5 



be paid solely to continental Australia as much of the fauna is held in common 

 with that of New Guinea and the Pacific islands and in some instances with areas 

 still further afield). 



Up to now Australian dipterists have been deterred from working on their 

 local tachinid fauna by the practical difficulties of knowing where to start in the 

 absence of any comprehensive revisionary works and scarcely any keys, and by 

 the fact that so many of the type-specimens are housed in collections outside 

 Australia. For some time there has been a need for a synthesis of existing 

 taxonomic knowledge which will provide a foundation upon which future work 

 can be developed, and the object of the work here presented has been to provide 

 a synthesis of this kind. The work has been based on a study of the Australian 

 Tachinidae carried out at intervals over the last ten years, and its aims are to 

 provide: (a) a classification of described forms and a classificatory framework 

 into which new forms can be fitted, with whatever modifications may be necessary, 

 as they are described; (b) preliminary characterizations of the subfamilies and 

 tribes recognized in the fauna and keys to family-group taxa; (c) identification keys 

 to the described genera and subgenera; (d) a taxonomic catalogue, based upon an 

 examination of all available primary types and geographically annotated; (e) a 

 catalogue of known hosts; and (f) an illustrated glossary of the terms used in the 

 taxonomy of adult Tachinidae that will aid the would-be student in acquiring a 

 knowledge of the group. It has not been practical at this stage, when many genera 

 remain in need of complete revision, to provide keys to species and descriptions 

 of species, and it should be noted that some of the species names listed in the 

 catalogue may prove to be synonyms of other names when their genera arc- 

 studied in detail. 



Finally in this preamble it might be useful to comment briefly on the apparent 

 affinities and zoogeographical relationships of the Australian Tachinidae. In the 

 main the fauna consists of endemic genera and species occurring principally in the 

 eastern and southern parts of the Australian continent and in Tasmania, but in 

 northern Queensland and in the Northern Territory this essentially Australian 

 fauna is supplemented by many Oriental genera and species that occur widely 

 throughout South-East Asia and spread eastwards into Melanesia and northern 

 Australia. There is thus a large shared element in the fauna between New Guinea 

 and Queensland of forms that probably reached Australia by immigration from 

 the north and west. In addition to this, however, there has perhaps been a 

 contrary movement of characteristically Australian forms northwards into New 

 Guinea (for recent collecting has now shown the presence of such typically 

 'Australian' genera as Amphibolia, Chaetophthalmus and Tritaxys in the central 

 New Guinea highlands), unless the common elements between upland New 

 Guinea and upland New South Wales are separated remnants from a formerly 

 widespread distribution. A few species occurring in Australia are widespread 

 throughout the Old World, and it seems likely that critical future work will show 

 the presence in Australia of species having a circum-Indian Ocean distribution 

 from eastern Africa through peninsular India and on to Western Australia or 

 Queensland: some tachinid parasites, such as Carcelia species attacking Heliothis 



