- Taxonomic Group (English): Empid, Hybotid & Dolichopodid flies
- Taxonomic Group (Scientific): Empididae, Brachystomatidae, Hybotidae, Atelestidae, Dolichopodidae
- Scheme Organisers: Steve Hewitt (Hybotidae & Atelestidae), Nigel Jones (Empididae & Brachystomatidae) and Martin Drake (Dolichopodidae)
- Addresses:
- Martin Drake, Orchid House, Burridge, Axminster, Devon, EX13 7DF
- Steve Hewitt, 28 Castle Drive, Penrith, Cumbria, CA11 7ED
- Nigel Jones, 22 Oak Street, Shrewsbury, SY3 7RQ
- Recording scheme newsletters
The Empidid and Dolichopodid Recording Scheme collates biological records for five related Diptera families comprising the Empidoidea:
- Hybotidae 182 species
- Atelestidae 2 species
- Empididae 208 species
- Brachystomatidae 4 species
- Dolichopodidae (now including Microphorinae) 326 species
When the recording scheme began under Roy Crossley, the first three of these families were once in the single family Empididae, which is why the scheme’s name appears to exclude two families. The Microphorinae have been moved about between ‘Empididae’, being a family of its own, and now as a subfamily of the Dolichopodidae.
The principal British guides to these families are:
- Collin, J.E. 1961. British flies. VI: Empididae. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
- Drake, C.M. 2026. British Dolichopodidae (Diptera). RES Insect Identification Handbooks. Royal Entomological Society/CABI.
- d’Assis Fonseca, E.C.M. 1978. Diptera Orthorrhapha Brachycera Dolichopodidae. Handbooks for the Identification of British Insects 9 (5). Royal Entomological Society, London.
Excellent more recent coverage of the ‘empids’ is given by Chvála’s four monographs:
- Chvála, M. 1975. The Tachydromiinae (Dipt. Empididae) of Fennoscandia and Denmark. Fauna Entomologica Scandinavica 3, 1-336.
- Chvála, M. 1983. The Empidoidea (Diptera) of Fennoscandia and Denmark. II. General Part. The families Hybotidae, Atelestidae and Microphoridae. Fauna Entomologica Scandinavica 12, 1-279.
- Chvála, M. 1994. The Empidoidea (Diptera) of Fennoscandia and Denmark. III Genus Empis. Fauna Entomologica Scandinavica 29, 1-192.
- Chvála, M. 2005. The Empidoidea (Diptera) of Fennoscandia and Denmark. IV Genus Hilara. Fauna Entomologica Scandinavica 40, 1-233.
Sending in records
We are always pleased to receive records. We collate them and use them for research and conservation. We have moved from MapMate to iRecord, and can input records from spreadsheets if you do not wish to input directly to iRecord yourself. None of the scheme organisers uses Recorder.
Data required
As well as the usual basic minimum (site name, VC, gridref, date, recorder, determiner) we would value:
- Sex. Knowing the sex can be important for estimating the reliability of identification in some genera, since females can sometimes be unidentifiable (whatever the key purports to tell you). An alternative is to place the sex in the ‘comments’ field.
- Habitat. As ecologists, we find this rather more useful than many other bits of information that are entered under ‘comment’. Habitat information can be as basic as ‘woodland’, but the more you say, the more useful the record.
Checking the records
The scheme organisers (Stephen Hewitt, Nigel Jones, Martin Drake) check incoming records to ensure that accuracy is maintained, and we may sometimes contact you to ask for further details about a particular record. It is in everyone's interest to maintain the quality of our data, and we will try to do this politely and diplomatically! For some species specimens or photos may be requested, or confirmation from another recorder may be advisable. Photos are often less helpful than one might hope.
Projects
Long-term aims:
- Atlas of dolichopodids.
Resources
Identification
Drake, C.M. 2025 British Dolichopodidae (Diptera). RES Insect Identification Handbooks. Royal Entomological Society/CABI.
This is available as hardback, softback (from about August 2026) and ebook. Membership of RES offers a 50% discount.
- Assis Fonseca, E.C.M. 1978. Diptera Orthorrhapha Brachycera Dolichopodidae. Handbooks for the Identification of British Insects 9 (5). Royal Entomological Society, London. This is out-of-print but freely downloadable from the RES https://www.royensoc.co.uk/out-print-handbooks . It is essentially a cut-down version of Parent’s monograph (see next) so many of the keys are less straight-forward than they need be for our smaller fauna. Since its publication (1978) we have added about 50 more species, so there’s room for misidentification. The keys to females do not have enough caveats that they may not work!
- Parent, O. 1938. Diptères Dolichopodidae. Faune de France 35. Lechevalier, Paris.
Out-of-print, rare and expensive second-hand. It can be downloaded from the Faune de France website https://faunedefrance.org/bibliotheque-virtuelle-numerique/ Scroll down to Insectes Diptères. It is a remarkable book and worth getting hold of since it covers most British species. Obviously it’s in French but Google Translate can sort that out for you.
- Die Fliegen der Palaearktischen Region (Ed. E. Lindner) covers many genera of dolichopodids and was published in 12 parts between 1930 and 1979. It is out-of-print, very expensive second-hand, written in German but with usually excellent illustrations. For difficult genera (especially Medetera and Thrypticus) it is almost essential as keys relying on non-genitalia characters alone (e.g. d’Assis Fonseca) don’t work reliably. It is incomplete; for example, the Diaphorinae and Sympycninae are not covered.
The next three publications by Grichanov and colleagues do not add much for the British dipterist. The first does have attractive habitus photographs of each genus which is a useful check when starting off. They may be useful if you have something that does not key out using d’Assis Fonseca.
- Grichanov, I.Ya., Negrobov, O.P. & Selivanova, O.V. 2011. Keys to Palaearctic subfamilies and genera of the family Dolichopodidae (Diptera). Cesa News 62, 13-46.
- Grichanov, I.Ya. 2006. A checklist and keys to North European genera and species of Dolichopodidae (Diptera). VIZR RAAS, 2006, 1-120. Plant Protection News Supplement. St Petersburg.
- Grichanov, I.Ya. 2007. A checklist and keys to Dolichopodidae (Diptera) of the Caucasus and East Mediterranean. VIZR RAAS, 2007, 1-160. Plant Protection News Supplement. St PetersburgEm
Empis - positions of bristles on the dorsal surface of the mesothorax
Two labelled drawings showing the various bristle positions on the mesothorax of Xanthempis are available to download below. The drawings will help to clarify the chaetotaxy of the mesothorax in other Empid genera as well: