Bibionidae

Bibionidae View in CoL View at ENA

A family with approximately 700 extant species distributed in eight genera ( Pinto and Amorim 2000, Fitzgerald 2004, Fitzgerald et al. 2020). In the Neotropical region, 192 species distributed in six genera are known ( Fitzgerald 1997, 2004, 2021a, 2021b). The South American and the worldwide fauna were inventoried in Hunter’s (1900) and Kertész’s (1902) catalogs, respectively. Hardy (1953) inventoried the fauna of Argentina and Hardy’s catalogs (1959, 1966) covered the Neotropical fauna. More recently, the fauna of Nicaragua, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, and Chile were addressed respectively by Maes (1990), Fitzgerald (2000, 2023), Falaschi et al. (2016a), and Fitzgerald et al. (2020). Brazil has 49 described species, and almost half of them (24) were described in the 1930s and 1940s ( Falaschi and Schelesky-Prado 2024). Only nine species have been described since Hardy’s catalog (1966): one in the 1980s, five in the 1990s, and only three from the 2000s onwards ( Falaschi and Schelesky-Prado 2024).

Bibionids are popularly known as march flies because of their emergence in the spring in the northern hemisphere. They are also referred to as lovebugs because of their habit of flying in copula, especially members of Plecia Wiedemann, 1828 ( Fitzgerald 2004). The immature stages and biology of Neotropical Bibionidae are poorly known ( Fitzgerald 2009). Immature stages of Plecia cf. collaris , P. nearctica Hardy, 1940 , and P. plagiata (Wiedemann, 1824) are known, described ( Kuitert 1975, Pinto and Amorim 1996). Additionally, the reproductive behavior of Dilophus sayi ( Hardy, 1959) and P. nearctica were discussed ( Thornhill 1976, Matthews and Matthews 1978). Lastly, the pollination behavior of D. espeletiae Sturm, 1990 was discussed ( Sturm 1990). Bibionidae is considered a monophyletic group by most authors, but the inclusion of the Holarctic genus Hesperinus Walker, 1848 in the family is still controversial ( Pinto and Amorim 2000, Fitzgerald 2004, Papp 2010).