Australoechus Greathead, 1995

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 : 154

Australoechus Greathead

Australoechus Greathead, 1995: 61 . Type species: Bombylius micans Fabricius, 1798 , by original designation.

Comments: Greathead (1995) showed that the Bombylius micans group of Bezzi (1924), Group 3 of Hesse (1938), have bare laterotergites and so belong a new genus. They resemble Anastoechus spp. inter alia in the broad head and shaggy, bristly vestiture, but differ from this genus in the placement of vein r-m and the attachment of the phallosome to the middle of the gonocoxae. In phylogenetic analyses Australoechus always forms a terminal clade with Anastoechus (Greathead unpublished).

Key: Hesse (1938) as Bombylius Group 3.

Distribution: South Africa: principally the Northern and Western Cape but extending into the Eastern Cape and Namibia and with 1 species in the Northern Province: 29 species.