Laphriini Links

Provisional Key to the Central European Species of the Genus Choerades Walker

This is a key by Fritz Geller-Grimm & M. J. Smart . It covers the central European counterparts to our Choerades. This key is posted on Fritz Geller-Grimm's homepage on asilids.

Photographic Atlas and Identification Key to the Robber Flies of Germany. Identification Key to the Laphria-species

Another illustrated key by Fritz Geller-Grimm. His key to Laphria is part of a much larger work on the robber flies of Germany.

Australian Asilidae. Laphriini

Again a part of a larger work, covering all Australian robber flies, this time by Dr. Robert Lavigne.

Digital Flies. Asilidae in Japan.

Site in Japanese and English by Yuji Tagawa. Covers all Japanese Asilidae. Click on the subfamily Laphriinae to see photos of Choerades and Laphria s. lat. Extremely nice photos of pinned specimens.

Herschel Raney's Pages on Laphriinae

This page is devoted to the Laphriinae of Arkansas (USA). It is part of a more extensive site on the asilids of Arkansas. These pages contain some absolutely fantastic photographs of live asilids, including Laphriines.

Norman Lavers' Pages on "The Robber Flies of Crowley's Ridge, Arkansas"

The link is to the Laphriinae portion. Lots of fine photos.

Giff Beaton's "Robber Flies (Asilidae) of Georgia and the Southeast"

Again, the link is to the portion on the subfamily Laphriinae. And again, lots of fantastic photos. Here the Laphriinae also includes the Laphystiini as per some recent tribal rearrangements. As there seems to be no direct back link from Giff's Laphriinae to his main robber fly pages, if you want to see them click here.

Mike Reese's "Wisconsin Butterflies" (Robber Fly Section)

The section on robber flies is part of a larger site on butterflies, tiger beetles, and robber flies, with the overall title of "Wisconsin Butterflies." Again, the link is to the portion on the subfamily Laphriinae. Some excellent photos of live flies.

General Asilid Links

Fritz Geller-Grimm's Asilid Home Page

This is current principal site for Asilids on the web. It has sections on worker's addresses and e-mail, various translations, news, keys, fossils, photos, links and much more besides.

Torsten Dikow's Life Desks site on Leptogastrinae (Diptera: Asilidae).

Devoted entirely to the highly-specialized asilid subfamily Leptogastrinae, or grass flies. Nothing on Laphriini.

Roy J. Beckemeyer's Asilid (Robber Fly) Page

This page is more-or-less devoted to asilids of Kansas (USA). It features photos of Microstylum, Ommatius, and Stichopogon from the state. There is also a section comparing asilids to those other aerial predators the Odonates or dragonflies.

Kurt Schaefer's "Robber Flies Asilidae of Goodwell and Texhoma Texas County, Oklahoma."

All photographs, of arid-lands species. The photos link to much more than first appears. No Laphriini.

Other Useful Links

Biodiversity Heritage Library (Diptera)

This is an excellent site for downloading free electronic copies of pre-1923 journal articles and books. The publications are available in PDF, DJVU, and several other formats. I prefer DJVU as for large papers it allows the smoothest scrolling, even on high-end machines (you can download a DJVU reader here). However, I often download the PDF version of an journal issue first, extract the article, and then convert it to a DJVU (you can download a PDF-to-DJVU converter here). I leave papers with just a few pages in PDF format, optimized to be compatible with Acrobat Ver. 4.0. That way, they will work on older computers. You can also use the site to search the hosted literature for references to a particular genus or species.

Systema Dipterorum

This site is an on-line, searchable list of all Diptera names. It was last updated in 2010. The information for each name includes its current validity. Very useful. Dr. F. Christian Thompson is the editor.

The Museum of Comparative Zoology's (MCZ) Type Database.

I've linked to this where appropriate in the North American Laphriini catalog, as well as in the species descriptions. Most of the Diptera types are well illustrated with several photographs each. Again, extremely useful. Includes 197 asilid types as of this writing.

California Academy of Sciences (CAS) Primary Type Database.

Similar to the MCZ setup. There are 387 asilid types. Unfortunately, none of them are North American Laphriini.