TACHINIDAE OF ORIENTAL REGION 9 



tion (such as host relations, reproductive method, larval morphology, male and 

 female postabdominal structure). It is therefore the case that subfamilies and 

 tribes of tachinids are simply not susceptible to straightforward definition on the 

 basis of a few features of the external adult morphology, nor even on the basis of 

 many adult characters possessed simultaneously - at least not in such a way that 

 any specimen can be immediately pigeonholed accurately into its tribe or subfamily. 



From the foregoing remarks it will be evident that, paradoxically, the most 

 difficult step for the non-specialist in practical identification is the first one - that 

 of placing an unknown adult specimen accurately into a subfamily. Specialists 

 in practice tend to ignore the subfamily level, especially as at present there is 

 incomplete agreement on the number and scope of the subfamilies that should be 

 recognized, but it does not make the first step in practical identification any easier 

 for the beginner on the group if the subfamily level is ignored and the first key 

 made straight to tribes; and a key made straight to genera would (in my view) 

 be ponderously unworkable and too fraught with the likelihood of misidentification 

 to be worth considering seriously for a very large fauna such as that of the Oriental 

 Region. An attempt has therefore been made to provide keys for the recognition 

 of subfamilies (together with 'awkward' tribes), but it must be understood that 

 these are merely tentative guides to the most likely subfamily for any specimen: the 

 running out of a specimen at a particular subfamily must not be considered a 

 guarantee that the subfamiliar placement is correct. 



The keys to subfamilies, as all the other keys in this work, depend greatly upon 

 the good condition of any specimen that is being identified. Ideally any tachinid 

 specimen for which a name is required should be dry and pinned (direct pinned 

 if large, micro-pinned if small) and tachinid specimens, however small, should 

 never be gummed on to card mounts (as this will often obscure very vital characters 

 such as whether the prosternum is bare or haired). 



Some practical points if kept in mind can be helpful at the start of routine 

 identification of adult flies, and in some instances can provide short-cuts to naming 

 with almost complete reliability. The following list shows the most useful of 

 these applying to the Oriental (and largely to the world) fauna. 



1. Phasiinae and Proseninae (Dexiinae) have bare eyes. A specimen with conspicuously 



hairy eyes belongs either to Tachininae or Goniinae (except for the dufouriine 

 genus Kambaitimyia). 



2. A specimen reared from Lepidoptera during parasite investigations by Departments 



of Agriculture or Forestry is most likely to belong to the Goniinae. 



[The vast majority of tachinids that regularly form part of routine collections 

 of parasites obtained from insect pests, especially from lepidopterous hosts, 

 are members of the Goniinae. Such reared specimens can usefully be tested 

 in the key to tribes of Goniinae as a first step.] 



3. Hemiptera are parasitized by members of the Phasiinae. Any specimen reared 



from a bug host belongs to the Phasiinae. 



