SUFFOLK DIPTERA CHECKLIST
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THE DIPTERA OF SUFFOLK PETER VINCENT 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 of Suffolk. Diptera are not well recorded in Suffolk, with few records of even quite common species. Therefore, records are in the main collected at monad (O.S.1km square) or greater accuracy, although, 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, 2023). The classification of British diptera starts with the Lower Diptera (Nemotercera) 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 (October 2023) runs to some 7259 species, of which 39 are recorded from Ireland only. (Chandler, 2023). The layout of the checklist is that for each family the first division is by genus followed by species in alphabetical order. Subfamilies and tribes are also recognised for most families, 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 including - place, date (with 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 in and the number of known records (in square brackets).
Part Six: Opetiidae, Platypezidae, Phoridae, Lonchopteridae. The first three parts of the checklist list all the known Suffolk species of the twentyfive families of the Lower Diptera suborder. Part Four started the second suborder of Diptera, the Brachycera. The Brachycera contains the remaining six infraorders of the British diptera, a total of eighty-one families. The first four infraorders, Xylophagomorpha, Tabanomorpha, Stratiomyomorpha and Asilomorpha, were covered in Part Four. The fifth infraorder, the Eremoneura, comprises of the Empidoidea and the Cyclorrhapha. The Empidoidea was catalogued in Part Five of the checklist. The Cyclorrhapha contains the remaining three superfamilies: Platypezoidea, Lonchopteroidea and Syrphoidea (known collectively as the Lower Cyclorrhapha), and the section Schizophora. Part Six of the checklist deals with the first two of these superfamilies: the Platypezoidea containing three families, Opetiidae, Platypezidae, and Phoridae, and the Lonchopteroidea, which contains only one family, Lonchopteridae. The Syrphoidea will be covered in subsequent parts of the checklist.
Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 59 (2023)