Manual of Nearctic Diptera. Volume 1

About 50 authors have contributed to this first part of a monograph on the Diptera of the Nearctic Region. The main purpose of this new manual is to provide an up-to-date, well illustrated, easily interpretable means of identifying the families and genera of the region. It is also designed to be a basic reference to a wide spectrum of biosystematic information on Diptera for professional biologists, teachers, students and informed amateurs. It was planned as a replacement for a publication by C.H. Curran [see RAE/B 23, p. 43], and will be in 2 volumes. Volume 1 contains 48 chapters, of which the first 5 are relevant to both volumes and include an introduction, accounts of the morphology and terminology of adults and larvae, and keys to the families of Diptera, based on adult and larval characters. Treatments of the 24 families of the Nematocera and the 19 families of the orthorraphous Brachycera comprise the remaining chapters of this volume. The chapters on the individual families include not only the relevant taxonomic review and keys to genera, but also information on distribution, biology, behaviour (including predation and parasitism on other insects and invertebrates) and medical and veterinary importance in many families such as the Psychodidae (especially the Phlebotominae), Culicidae, Simuliidae, Ceratopogonidae, Tabanidae and Rhagionidae