Fungus Gnats Online

The first modern Swedish checklist of fungus gnats of the families Bolitophilidae, Diadocidiidae, Ditomyiidae, Keroplatidae and Mycetophilidae is presented. The checklist results from a comprehensive literature research as well as treatment of a considerable determined and undetermined material from Swedish museum collections and recent material from several sources. To get better grounds for judging many old and doubtful records from Sweden, a nearly complete review of fungus gnats from the J. W. Zetterstedt collection at the Museum of Zoology in Lund has been undertaken and identifications corrected where needed. In order to preserve nomenclatural stability three species names are reinstated, all with priority over junior synonyms, viz. Orfelia lugubris (Zetterstedt, 1851) comb. n. = Orfelia tristis (Lundström, 1911) syn. n., Ectrepesthoneura ovata Ostroverkhova, 1977 = Ectrepesthoneura bucera Plassmann, 1980 syn. n., and Dynatosoma thoracicum (Zetterstedt, 1838) sens. auct. nec Zaitzev = Dynatosoma norwegiense Zaitzev & Økland, 1994 syn. n. We further find the holotype of Mycetophila grisea Zetterstedt, 1852 to be identical to Mycetophila perpallida Chandler, 1993, but retain Mycetophila perpallida pending a review of other possible synonyms with precedence. Ectrepesthoneura pubescens (Zetterstedt, 1860) is found to be a synonym of Ectrepesthoneura unifurcata (Zetterstedt, 1860) comb. n. syn. n. where the first name is retained as valid due to page priority. Four names described by Zetterstedt remain nom. dub., viz.: Mycomya diluta (Zetterstedt, 1860), Mycomya (Mycomya) notata (Zetterstedt, 1860), Brevicornu fusculum (Zetterstedt, 1838), and Brevicornu obscurellum (Zetterstedt, 1838) comb. n. Stigmatomeria obscura (Winnertz, 1863) sp. restit. is found to be a distinct species separate from Stigmatomeria crassicornis (Stannius, 1831). New combinations are suggested for Exechia praedita Plassmann, 1976 = Exechiopsis (Xenexechia) praedita (Plassmann, 1976) comb. n., and for Rhymosia pectinacea Ostroverkhova, 1979 = Pseudexechia pectinacea (Ostroverkhova, 1979) comb. n. Having removed 17 published species names with doubtful or wrong records (listed at the end) we find that the published sources comprise altogether 585 species. 137 species are reported for the first time in Sweden, bringing the total up to 722. Additional 36 species considered to be new to science are mentioned for completeness, but will be further presented and described elsewhere. Hence, at present the known fauna (including claimed undescribed species) comprises 758 species in 83 genera; 25 species of the family Bolitophilidae, 5 of the family Diadocidiidae, 3 of the family Ditomyiidae, 45 of the family Keroplatidae, 679 of the family Mycetophilidae and 1 in the unplaced genus Sciarosoma Chandler. For each species a full account of published Swedish sources with pagination, all synonyms used in Sweden and the currently known distribution in the Swedish provinces as well as the known world distribution is given. The Swedish species of fungus gnats are generally very widespread: 47% being widespread in Europe, 43% being distributed in the Eastern Palaearctic Region, and 25% having a Holarctic distribution. We find significantly higher species richness in the boreal forests of northern Sweden, but only 3% of the species so far described are known only from the Nordic biogeographical region.