TACHINIDAE OF ORIENTAL REGION 91 



apical setae) and the feature of the calyptral hairing alone could hardly constitute 

 a valid generic character in this group. 



The distribution range of Nemoraea s.l. extends eastwards as far as New Guinea 

 and Queensland (Crosskey, 19736) but the genus appears to be absent from the 

 Pacific islands eastwards of New Guinea and is absent from New Zealand. The 

 hosts are Lepidoptera of such families as Lymantriidae and Noctuidae, but there 

 are very few host records as yet for Oriental species. An undescribed Australian 

 species parasitizes the Sphingid Theretra nessus Drury. 



Tribe LESKIINI 



The tribe Leskiini in the sense used here conforms very closely to the tribal-group 

 entity Leskiina-Clausicellina recently defined by Mesnil (1973a : 1115). In con- 

 formity with Mesnil I include the curious genera Istoglossa Rondani and Clausicella 

 Rondani as part of the Leskiini s.l. and not, as is sometimes done, in the separate 

 tribe Clausicellini. 



The leskiines are moderately well represented in the Oriental Region where they 

 include at present twelve genera in addition to the two already mentioned. Some 

 of the genera, such as Leskia Robineau-Desvoidy itself, Solieria Robineau-Desvoidy 

 and Ocypteromina Townsend occur widely also in the Palaearctic or Ethiopian 

 regions but others seem to be essentially Oriental or Oriento-Australasian, at 

 least as defined at present, e.g. Demoticoides. In addition to the more typical 

 genera the Oriental tachinid fauna contains several very small genera that, with 

 considerable uncertainty, I place at present in the Leskiini. These include the 

 hairy-eyed genera Dexiomimops Townsend, Trichoformosomyia Baranov and 

 Feriola Mesnil all of which have a very much leskiine facies whatever their true 

 affinities may be. Certainly for practical purposes, in the present poor state of 

 knowledge, it is more convenient to place these three genera in Leskiini than any- 

 where else; though I doubt whether a study of male genitalia, host relations and 

 other factors, will necessarily support such placement, which is made purely as an 

 interim measure and to assist in recognition. Mesnil excludes the three genera 

 from Leskiini, having proposed a special tribal-group taxon Dexiomimopsina for 

 the first named (Mesnil, 1966 : 892), having placed Trichoformosomyia in the Neo- 

 minthoina (Mesnil, 1962 : 780), and having placed Feriola at the time of description 

 and recently in Eriothrixini (Mesnil, 1957 : 77; 1975 : 131 1), and it is possible that 

 these placements are phylogenetically more apposite than my own utilitarian assign- 

 ment to Leskiini. Much more study is needed to discover the evolutionary relation- 

 ships. (Very recently Mesnil (1975 : 1326) has re-assigned Dexiomimops by placing 

 it in the eriothrixines.) 



So far as is known the species of Leskiini are almost entirely parasites of Lepidop- 

 tera, often of Pyralidae. There are very few records from the Oriental Region 

 and none for the problematical genera just discussed. 



