Monographs on Invertebrate Taxonomy : Australian Lauxaniid Flies

The Lauxaniidae are one of the largest families of acalyptrate Diptera (series Schizophora) and are distributed in all the major zoogeographical regions of the world.

There are 142 recognized genera and about 1550 described species in the world fauna of Lauxaniidae as compiled from available references.

The majority of the Australian lauxaniids were described by Malloch during the 1920s, but taxonomic study of the Australian Lauxaniidae in general has been neglected for more than 50 years.

The aim of this book is to achieve a major taxonomic revision for the study group primarily using traditional descriptive methods, in which taxa are grouped by morphological features; then, by employing a range of numerical taxonomic methods, to find phenetic patterns that might confirm or discredit the groupings produced by traditional methods.

A PAUP analysis for the whole study group is then finally carried out to estimate phylogenetic relationships of taxa, from which the phylogeny was inferred. Due to inconsistent costal form in Trypetisoma and Noonamyia Stuckenberg, this revision does not accept the present suprageneric classification which needs further taxonomic investigation on the remaining lauxaniid genera.

This study recognizes the following Australian genera: Australinina, Cephaloconus, Homoneura, Longifrons, Tanyura, Wawu, Xenohomoneura, Noeetomima and Trypetisoma, of which two genera (Lonigfrons, Tanyura) are new, and one (Xenohomoneura) has new status.

Euhomoneura and Homoneura are recognized as subgenera of Homoneura and Homoneura, .s. str. is divided into 15 informal species-groups. Trypaneoides Tonnoir and Malloch is recognised along as a subgenus Trypetisoma.

The adults of all species of the study group are described and 155 species are illustrated. This monograph offers an account of a significant proportion of the Australian fauna of Lauxaniidae; a review of biology and morphology; description of 128 new species and redescription of 25 species in nine genera; distribution maps for all 158 species; 1200 high quality drawings of terminalia, wings and body structures of 155 species; six habitus drawings; descriptions generated using DELTA from 234 characters; phylogenetic analysis using a range of programs; and over 180 key references.