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 are 
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 
