Mycetophilidae (Hennig, 1973)

Mycetophilidae View in CoL View at ENA

The Mycetophilidae View in CoL at present have 1,219 Neotropical described species distributed in 56 genera ( Oliveira and Amorim 2014b, 2014c, 2021, Amaral et al. 2023). A new Neotropical species was recently described by Afiune and Oliveira (2024), but not included in the database herein studied, totalizing 1,220 species in neotropics. Mycetophilids are widely distributed in the Neotropical Region. Recent inventories documented the presence of genera in different areas, widening their distribution in South America (e.g., Amorim et al. 2022, Riccardi et al. 2022, Lamas et al. 2023). The current number of known Neotropical species ( Oliveira 2024b) in relation to the first version of Neotropical ( Papavero 1978) shows an increase in the number of species from 749 to 1,219, 63% in 45 years.

Mycetophilids are part of the fungus gnats and their life cycle has mostly larvae feeding on fungi. The biology of the Neotropical species of the family began to be documented only recently ( Oliveira et al. 2015, Passacq et al. 2017, Amaral et al. 2022a, 2022b, 2023). There is no question about the monophyly of the Mycetophilidae View in CoL if we disregard a few mesosciophilid-like genera, such as Freemanomyia Jaschhof. View in CoL The most recent classification system within the family was proposed by Oliveira and Amorim (2021).