Updated Italian checklist of Soldier Flies (Diptera, Stratiomyidae)

Abstract An updated checklist for Stratiomyidae of Italy is presented. Previous knowledge and information are put together in a comprehensive way, integrated also with results obtained by sampling with Malaise traps in some of the test areas of the LIFE+ project ManFor C.BD. At the time of writing, with 91 known species, the Italian fauna of Stratiomyidae is the richest in Europe. Neopachygaster meromelas (Dufour, 1841) and Zabrachia minutissima (Zetterstedt, 1838) are new to the Italian fauna. A comprehensive key to the European species of Chorisops Rondani, 1856 is given.


Neopachygaster meromelas (Dufour, 1841)
The larva of Neopachygaster meromelas has been described in detail by Rozkošný (1983) and by Stubbs and Drake (2001). The material examined was collected in Latium, Roma at "Tenuta della Cervelletta" 41°54'41.55"N, 12°34'57.15"E. Nine larvae were collected on 7.ii.2005 under decaying bark of a trunk of Populus sp. partially submerged in water; 3 ♂♂ and 6 ♀♀ emerged from reared larvae on v-vi/2005, M. Mei leg. (FMCV). Neopachygaster meromelas is a European species, known from Fennoscandia to the Pyrenees and North Caucasus (Rozkošný 1983), and has been recorded from the following countries: Belarus, Belgium, British Islands, Corsica, Czech Republic, Finland, France (mainland), Germany, Hungary, Poland, Russia (North and Northwest), Slovakia, Spain (mainland), Sweden (Rozkošný 2012) and Italy (this paper). In Italy Neopachygaster meromelas is known only in central Italy at "Tenuta della Cervelletta", a small natural area (about 44 ha) located in the Northeast suburbs of Rome which is a relict wetland (Mason and Mei 2002). This site represents the southernmost European record of the species (cf. Rozkošný 1983).
As in other Beridinae (Woodley 2001) three subspherical spermathecae are present in the females of Chorisops (Figs 7, 8). The sensory pits on the external side of the first flagellomere, are up to four different types: finger-like (A), sunken finger-like in a pit (B), subconical (C) and stick-like inside a pit (D) (cf. Figs 9, 10). The males of C. nagatomii (cf. also Stubbs and Drake 2001), were observed in a swarm over a shrub in a grassland and on flowers of Hedera helix L., in a floodplain forest (D. Birtele, pers. comm. 2012). In Italy, the peak of the flight period of C. nagatomii and C. masoni is generally between the second half of August and the first half of September (cf. Mason 2004), about one month later than the flight period of C. tibialis. A new record is here reported for Piedmont for C. nagatomii: 1 ♂ Alessandria province, Piovera, 44°57'43"N, 8°44'5"E, x.1933, G. C. Doria (in MCSNG).

Key to the European species of Chorisops
Despite the availability of a relatively large amount of newly collected material of Chorisops, I have not been able to find any reliable external character of diagnostic   Rozkošný (1982) Troiano (1995 and Troiano and Toscano (1995).

Short faunistic notes
With newly recorded Eupachygaster meromelas and Zabrachia minutissima, the Italian fauna includes at the present time 91 species. The species probably endemic to Italy are: Chorisops caroli, C. masoni and Sargus harderseni (Fig. 46), the last recently described (Mason and Rozkošný 2008). The unique Italian record of Vanoya tenuicornis (Macquart, 1834), (Mason and Mei 2002) represents the southernmost European distribution of this species. The different regional distributions (cf. Tab. 1, Fig. 1

Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Rudolf Rozkošný (Brno, Czech Republic), Norman E. Woodley (Washington, USA) and Martin Hauser (Sacramento, USA), who kindly review the manuscript and the English. Daniele Birtele, Maurizio Mei (Rome, Italy), Roberto Poggi (Genova, Italy), Daniele Sommaggio (Ferrara, Italy) and Stefano Vanin (Huddersfield, UK) kindly provided some interesting material for this study. Massimo Lopresti (Verona, Italy) enhanced the quality of the figures and composed the tables. Part of the work that contributed to this publication has been funded in the framework of the project LIFE09 ENV/IT/000078 ManFor C.BD. "Managing forests for multiple purposes: carbon, biodiversity and socio-economic wellbeing", coordinated by G. Matteucci CNR-IBAF, Rome, Italy. Thanks are due also to Alessandro Bottacci (Italian National Forest Service, Biodiversity Office, Rome) and Augusto Vigna Taglianti (University "La Sapienza", Rome) for their support to this research and to two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on a earlier version of the manuscript.