A new paper on Mydidae by Kathleen Lyons and Torsten Dikow, reviewing the Afrotropical genera Ectyphus and Parectyphus and describing one new species in Ectyphus from Kenya has just been published in ZooKeys. This publication extends the distribution of Ectyphinae from western North America and southern Africa to also include eastern Africa. For details and download of a free PDF see either the Bibliography or the publication site. You can also use the following link directly to access the paper on the ZooKeys web-site.
Torsten Dikow visited the San Diego Natural History Museum (SDMC), California, USA to study the small, but interesting Apioceridae, Asilidae, and Mydidae collection that is particularly strong for insects from southern California, USA and the Baja California peninsula in Mexico.
Entrance area of the San Diego Natural History Museum.
Male of Mydas fisheri Wilcox et al., 1989 in lateral view photographed in the collection of the SDMC. Mexico, Baja California Sur, San Bartolo, 28.viii.1982, D. Faulkner J. Brown, SDMC. This specimen is a paratype of M. fisheri Welch and Kondratieff, 1990, which is a junior synonym of M. fisheri Wilcox et al., 1989.
Torsten also attended the 58th annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America held in San Diego and presented a talk entitled, “Phylogeny of Mydidae inferred from morphological characters of imagines (Diptera: Asiloidea)”. The presentation can be viewed here.