TACHINIDAE OF ORIENTAL REGION 7 



been accepted or newly established it is on the basis of direct comparison of the types 

 of the type-species or comparison with reliably determined material of the type-species. 

 The construction of keys has, of course, been based on an examination of as much 

 material as possible of each taxon cited in the keys, subject to the limitations 

 imposed by the BMNH collections and borrowed material. 



Most of the terminology used in the keys should be clearly comprehended from 

 the labelled Text-figs 1-19, which have been prepared specially to illustrate the 

 characters that are mentioned with most frequency. It has not been thought 

 necessary in this work to provide a glossary of terms as this has already been done 

 recently elsewhere (Crosskey, 19736 : 9-26); the terminology in this paper correlates 

 completely with that glossary. It should perhaps be mentioned that the terminology 

 is essentially for the taxonomist, and not all terms necessarily appeal to the pure 

 morphologist (the prescutum and scutum of the taxonomist, for example, are 

 strictly speaking the anterior and posterior parts of the mesoscutum). All ter- 

 minology is concerned only with the adult flies, as early stages of Oriental tachinids 

 are virtually unknown and classification and identification have perforce to be 

 based solely on the imagines. 



Certain standard practices of abbreviation have been followed to describe the 

 bristling (chaetotaxy) of the thorax and the positions of the important bristles 

 (setae) of the legs. The abbreviations for thoracic setae are as follows: 



acr acrostichal pra pre-alar 



dc dorsocentral prst acr presutural acrostichal 



ia intra-alar prst dc presutural dorsocentral 



ph posthumeral prst ia presutural intra-alar 



post acr postsutural acrostichal sa supra-alar 



post dc postsutural dorsocentral stpl sternopleural 



post ia postsutural intra-alar 



For describing the positions of leg setae the usual convention is used of imagining 

 the leg to be extended at a right-angle to the longitudinal axis of the fly, when 

 the positions can be described as: 



a 



anterior 



P 



posterior 



ad 



anterodorsal 



pd 



posterodorsal 



av 



anteroventral 



pv 



posteroventral 



d 



dorsal 



V 



ventral 



It is important to note that a tibial seta indicated by any of the italicized letters just 

 listed is on the shaft of the tibia and not at its end unless otherwise specified. 



Abdominal tergites are indicated by the letter T followed by the appropriate 

 number; the composite first apparent tergite is Ti + 2 and the last large tergite 

 that is normally visible is T5. The two tergites between these two, i.e. T3 and 

 T4, are sometimes referred to collectively as the 'intermediate abdominal tergites'. 



Setae standing on the edge of a structure are referred to as 'marginal', for example 

 all setae inserted on the circumference of the scutellum are collectively termed 

 'marginal scutellar setae'. Similarly, setae standing at or near the middle of a 



