86 R. W. CROSSKEY 



is exceptional in having the prosternum setulose I have found that Melanasomyia 

 aberrans (Mesnil) also has one or two hairs on this sclerite and my tribal diagnosis 

 can be modified accordingly. 



The most typical minthoines are elongate black-bodied flies in which the arista 

 is plumose, the epistome flat, the scutellar setae reduced (basals or apicals, or 

 both, and laterals often absent), and the first visible abdominal segment not excava- 

 ted, and these features give the group a moderately characteristic facies. Neverthe- 

 less many of them resemble certain blondeliines, leskiines and thelairines, and 

 genera such as Megistogastropsis Townsend could - on the evidence available - be 

 equally well placed elsewhere. The Blondeliini include several genera such as 

 Eophyllophila Townsend in which the inner vertical setae are cruciate, the arista 

 long-plumose, and the female fore tarsus obviously flattened and it is possible that 

 such genera have closer affinities with Minthoini than true Blondeliini. 



The last-mentioned character, that of the female fore tarsi, is of special significance 

 in the Minthoini. In many minthoines the fore tarsi of females (and sometimes 

 also of males) are conspicuously enlarged in relation to the remainder of the fore 

 legs and in relation to the other tarsi, and in general the greater the degree of tarsal 

 dilation the smaller are the fore tarsal claws; in some forms the fore claws are so 

 reduced as to appear absent at first glance. The significance of this feature is 

 unknown, but it makes many members of the Minthoini immediately placeable 

 as belonging in the tribe. As a rule the fore tarsi when enlarged are also compressed 

 laterally so that they appear very obviously dilated when seen in side view, but 

 certain forms which appear to be minthoines, such as Megistogastropsis , show 

 transverse widening instead of dorsoventral dilation of the female fore tarsi. The 

 genus Melanasomyia is particularly remarkable because in M. aberrans the last 

 fore tarsal segment of the female is much bigger than usual in minthoines and the 

 preceding three tarsal segments are exceptionally shortened and compacted (the 

 last segment being equal in length to the three preceding segments together, Text- 

 fig. 146). 



The Minthoini is not a large tribe but is moderately well represented in the Oriental 

 Region, where about half the known species belong to the genus Sumpigaster Mac- 

 quart. Mesnil (1973a : 1162) has recently redefined this genus to embrace several 

 Ethiopian and Oriental genera that had hitherto been treated as valid. I agree 

 fully with Mesnil's new treatment of Sumpigaster, for the result of his approach 

 has been to define a much more 'natural-looking' Palaeotropical genus and greatly 

 to improve the classification of Minthoini. Mesnil (loc. cit.) lists the previously estab- 

 lished synonyms of Sumpigaster , viz. M esembriomintho Townsend and Atractodexia 

 Bigot (based on Australasian nominal species that are synonyms of Sumpigaster 

 type-species) , and lists the following names as new synonyms of Sumpigaster (although 

 he does not annotate them as being new synonyms) : Eomintho Townsend and 

 Tachinodexia Townsend, based on Oriental type-species, and Megistodexia Town- 

 send, Syneplaca Villeneuve, Dyshypostena Villeneuve and Synhypostena Villeneuve 

 that are based on Ethiopian type-species. The synonymy involving Ethiopian 

 type-species will be accepted for the forthcoming catalogue of Ethiopian Tachinidae 

 (Crosskey, in preparation) and the synonymy involving Oriental type-species is 



