Bombyliinae Latreille, 1802

Greathead, D. J. & Evenhuis, N. L., 2001, Annotated keys to the genera of African Bombylioidea (Diptera: Bombyliidae; Mythicomyiidae), African Invertebrates 42 (1820), pp. 105-224 : 147-148

Bombyliinae Latreille

Type genus: Bombylius Linnaeus, 1758 .

The Bombyliinae is the largest of the subfamilies of Bombyliidae in numbers of genera, and its generic composition has been altered greatly since it was defined by Becker (1913), owing to the inclusion or exclusion of genus groups by successive authors. The Corsomyza group of genera, included by Hesse (1938), was shown by Theodor (1983) to have a deeply concave and divided occiput and is now placed in the Mariobezziinae ( Yeates 1994). Bowden (1980) divided the African genera into Bombyliini , Dischistini , Conophorini and Crocidiini. The Crocidiini, added by Hesse

(1938), have since been removed to a separate subfamily ( Yeates 1994). Phylogenetic analysis of the Bombyliini and Dischistini has failed to find a single autapomorphy for the Dischistini ( Yeates 1994; Greathead 1995), or indeed a single key character that could be used to define it – the two principal characters, open cell r 5 and bare laterotergite, are both plesiomorphies and variable between genera and species. However, although recognition of the Dischistini has the merit of breaking down an unwieldy list of genera – and of separating genera of probable origin in Gondwana from those originating in Laurasia – the division of the genera into Bombyliini and Dischistini has been abandoned. If recognised, the split would take place at the first couplet of the key to genera of Bombyliini .