Stefan Naglis

Comprehensive inventory of true flies (Diptera) at a tropical site

Estimations of tropical insect diversity generally suffer from lack of known groups or faunas against which extrapolations can be made, and have seriously underestimated the diversity of some taxa. Here we report the intensive inventory of a four-hectare tropical cloud forest in Costa Rica for one year, which yielded 4332 species of Diptera, providing the first verifiable basis for diversity of a major group of insects at a single site in the tropics. In total 73 families were present, all of which were studied to the species level, providing potentially complete coverage of all families of the order likely to be present at the site. Even so, extrapolations based on our data indicate that with further sampling, the actual total for the site could be closer to 8000 species. Efforts to completely sample a site, although resource-intensive and time-consuming, are needed to better ground estimations of world biodiversity based on limited sampling.Brian Brown et al. report the results of the Zurquí All Diptera Biodiversity Inventory project, one of the largest efforts to date to directly assess species richness of a megadiverse order of insects. The authors identified 41,001 flies to 4332 species, including 73 of the worlds 160 Diptera families.

Two new species of Medetera Fischer von Waldheim (Diptera, Dolichopodidae) from Russia and Mongolia.

Two new species Medetera sakhalinensis Negrobov & Naglis sp. nov. from Russian Far East (Sakhalin) and M. emeljanovi Negrobov & Naglis sp. nov. from Mongolia are described and differential diagnosis are given.

Dolichopodidae (Diptera) from the Iberian Peninsula, with description of three new species.

Faunistic data is given for 43 species of Dolichopodidae from the Iberian Peninsula. Altogether nine species are recorded for the first time from Portugal and six species from Spain. Three species are described as new to science: Chrysotimus meridionalis sp. nov. (Spain, Portugal), Hercostomus ibericus sp. nov. (Spain), and Sciapus negrobovi sp. nov. (Portugal).

Re-description of Medetera glaucella Kowarz, 1878 (Diptera, Dolichopodidae) based on type material

In his monograph of the genus Medetera , Kowarz (1878) described Medeterus glaucellus based on specimens from Italy and Austria collected by Mik, and from Romania collected by himself. He noted the resemblance to M. muralis Meigen, 1824, since both species lack dorsal setae on the mid tibia, and distinguished his new species by the white lower postocular setae and the white setae on the propleura and coxae. In the revision of the Palaearctic Medeterinae (Negrobov & Stackelberg 1971–77) the re-description of M. glaucella was not based on type specimens and the male hypopygium was not examined and figured. We have examined syntypes of M. glaucella from the Kowarz collection of the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien and have designated a lectotype in order to preserve stability of nomenclature. In addition, we give a re-description of M. glaucella based on the type material and provide figures of the male hypopygium for the first time.