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. MHeteropterous 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 fergusoni, which has been reared 
from 28 host species (22 undescribed and the others named). Blackith (1967) has 
discussed this species under the name M yothyria 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). 
