TACHINIDAE OF AUSTRALIA 169 



to make it at the present time (though, as aforesaid, a search of collections in 

 Australia will yield up a few additional records that have not been known to me 

 while preparing the present work). 



A SYNOPSIS OF THE HOST-RELATIONS OF AUSTRALIAN TACHINIDAE 



Hosts are known for almost a quarter of the described Australian tachinid 

 fauna, but as the described fauna probably does not represent more than about 

 a quarter or fifth of the actual number of species in Australia it is evident that 

 knowledge of the hosts is only very fragmentary at present. The following 

 comments summarize the host-relations for the different host orders and parasite 

 groups, so far as they can be generalized from what is already known. 



Lepidoptera. This order provides the hosts for the great bulk of forms in the 

 Tachininae and Goniinae, but is not parasitized by any Phasiinae or Proseninae. 

 Both butterflies and moths are attacked, and 27 families are so far known to 

 provide tachinid hosts in Australia. Some lepidopterous species, especially in 

 the Noctuidae, are attacked by several species of Tachinidae, at least nine species 

 attacking the army-worm Pseudaletia unipuncta. 



Coleoptera. This order is next in importance to the Lepidoptera in the number 

 of host members it provides, though up to now only four families are known to 

 be involved as hosts of Australian Tachinidae. Members of the order are attacked 

 by the Proseninae, Palpostomatini, several genera of Blondeliini and apparently 

 by Apatemyia (probably Leskiini) and Pseudalsomyia (Eryciini). The Proseninae 

 and Palpostomatini are confined to beetle hosts in the larval and adult stages 

 respectively and mainly attack Scarabaeidae. 



Hemiptera. Heteropterous land bugs are hosts of the Phasiinae only, and in 

 Australia this subfamily (on the limited evidence so far) is confined to hemipterous 

 hosts. Members of the Coreidae, Lygaeidae and Pyrrhocoridae provide the hosts 

 so far discovered, but the Australian Pentatomidae are almost certainly parasitized 

 also (as the genus Pentatomophaga has pentatomid hosts in Java and New 

 Guinea). 



Orthoptera. Acridoidea of the families Acrididae and Eumastacidae are the 

 hosts of the Acemyini, and this tribe is confined to acridoid hosts. The most 

 polyphagous species of tachinid known in the Australian fauna, though its host 

 species are all acridids and eumastacids, is Ceracia fergasoni, which has been reared 

 from 28 host species (22 undescribed and the others named). Blackith (1967) has 

 discussed this species under the name Myothyria fergusoni, and this work is the only 

 paper of any note that has yet appeared on the biology of any Australian 

 Tachinidae. Hosts are not yet known in Australia for Phorocerosoma (tribe 

 Ethillini) or the Ormiini, but it is likely that these tachinids will be found to have 

 orthopterous hosts: Phorocerosoma is a parasite of Acridoidea in Japan and in 

 Africa, and the Ormiini are parasites of nocturnally active Tettigoniidae s.l. 

 wherever the hosts are known (New World, southern Europe, Fiji). 



