Diptera of Canada

Abstract

The Canadian Diptera fauna is updated. Numbers of species currently known from Canada, total Barcode Index Numbers (BINs), and estimated numbers of undescribed or unrecorded species are provided for each family. An overview of recent changes in the systematics and Canadian faunistics of major groups is provided as well as some general information on biology and life history. A total of 116 families and 9620 described species of Canadian Diptera are reported, representing more than a 36% increase in species numbers since the last comparable assessment by JF McAlpine et al. (1979). Almost 30,000 BINs have so far been obtained from flies in Canada. Estimates of additional number of species remaining to be documented in the country range from 5200 to 20,400.

The genus Pseudolycoriella Menzel & Mohrig, 1998 (Diptera, Sciaridae) in New Zealand

“…The existence of such a large proportion of new species is not unusual in sciarids. For instance, Savage et al (2019) stated that 129 described Canadian sciarid species exist, compared to 2,863 BINs. Even in the comparatively well studied Western Palaearctic the use of molecular techniques has revealed hitherto unknown cryptic species complexes (Heller et al 2016).…”

A revised annotated checklist of louse flies (Diptera, Hippoboscidae) from Slovakia

“…Worldwide, more than 213 louse fly species are known (e.g., Maa 1963, Dick 2006, Rahola et al 2011): 57 species from the Afrotropical region (e.g., Hutson and Oldroyd 1980, Oboňa et al 2016), 26 from East Palaearctic Asia and Japan (e.g., Maa 1967, Mogi and Sawada 2002, Matyukhin et al 2017), 9 from China, 8 from the eastern part of Russia (e.g., Soós and Hůrka 1986, Sun 1999), 6 from the Oriental and Australasian regions (e.g., Paramonov 1954, Amiot and Ji 2015, Farrow 2016), and 31 species have been reported from the Nearctic and Neotropic regions (e.g., Bequaert 1942, 1954, 1965, Savage et al 2019).…”

The diversity of terrestrial arthropods in Canada

“…Among the seven most diverse groups in Canada (groups with >1000 described species), the Acari is most poorly known with less than one third of species described. The percent of described Diptera ranges from 32% to 65%, so in the worse-case scenario flies are about as poorly known as mites; however, unlike the mites the largest proportion (perhaps even the majority) of undocumented flies are in one family [Cecidomyiidae, with 1000 to 16,000 additional species expected (Savage et al 2019)]. Less than half (ca.…”

“…Notably, Acari and Diptera, two of the six largest groups in the country, do not have national or provincial/territorial checklists. The state of knowledge of each these two highly diverse groups is too fragmented and preliminary to yet contemplate production of a national checklist for the entire group, although some portions (e.g., families) of these groups have been catalogued (Beaulieu et al 2019, Savage et al 2019.…”