SUFFOLK DIPTERA CHECKLIST
1
THE DIPTERA OF SUFFOLK PETER VINCENT
Part Two: Bibionidae, Bolitophilidae, Diadocidiidae, Ditomyiidae, Keroplatidae, Mycetophilidae, Sciaridae, Cecidomyiidae. The checklist begins with the first infraorder of the Lower Diptera the Tipulomorpha. In Part Two this is followed by the second infraorder of the Lower Diptera the Bibionomorpha. The Bibionomorpha contains two superfamilies, the Bibionoidea and the Sciaroidea. The Bibionoidea contains only one family, Bibionidae, whereas, the Sciaroidea contains seven families, Bolitophilidae, Diadocidiidae, Ditomyiidae, Keroplatidae, Mycetophilidae, Sciaridae, and Cecidomyiidae. The Bibionidae are robust, hairy flies and some 215mm in length. The body colour is usually black but is partially red or yellow in some cases. The family includes the largest Bibionid Bibio marci (Linnaeus, 1758), the familiar St Mark’s fly. In Suffolk the Bibionidae are reasonably well known and of the 18 British species 17 have been recorded in the county. Bibio marci Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 55 (2019)
B. Heather
Introduction The records that form this checklist are from the Watsonian vice-counties of East (v.c. 25) and West (v.c. 26) Suffolk which are of greater extent than the modern administrative county boundaries. Diptera are not well recorded in Suffolk, with few records of even quite common species. Therefore, although records are in the main collected at monad (O.S.1km square) or greater accuracy, in order to assess the relative abundance and distribution of a diptera species the hectad (O.S.10km square) is used as the base recording unit. Suffolk comprises of 54 hectads or part hectads. In this checklist of Suffolk Diptera, the arrangement of families follows as set out in Chandler (1998) and updates (Dipterists Forum, 2019). The classification of British diptera starts with the Lower Diptera (Nematocera) followed by the Brachycera. Within families, all taxa are listed alphabetically. Altogether there are at present 107 families of diptera recognised within the British fauna, and the British Isles list of diptera currently (June 2019) runs to some 7187 species (of which 41 are recorded from Ireland only) (Chandler, 2019), The layout of the checklist is that for each family the first division is by genus and then by species in alphabetical order. For most families, subfamilies and tribes are also recognised: and the genus can also be divided at subgenus level. For every individual species the species name (in bold type) is followed by the authority, then details of the first record of that species from Suffolk - place, date (to as much accuracy as possible) and recorder (where known). To give an indication of the distribution and the abundance of each species, this is followed by a list of all the hectads each species has occurred and the number of known records (in square brackets).