Psiloderoidinae

Greathead, D. J. & Evenhuis, N. L., 2001, Annotated keys to the genera of African Bombylioidea (Diptera: Bombyliidae; Mythicomyiidae), African Invertebrates 42 (1820), pp. 105-224 : 129

Psiloderoidinae Hull

Type genus: Psiloderoides Hesse, 1967 .

Interestingly, when Hull (1973) proposed this grouping (as Psiloderoidini) within the subfamily Platypyginae , he included Psiloderoides and the Australian genus Cyrtomorpha White [the latter name preoccupied; = Acridophagus Evenhuis ], but placed Onchopelma in the Cyrtosiini. This subfamily is characterised by the short R 2+3, much shorter than R 4+5. The Jurassic fossil Palaeoplatypygus Kovalev and the Cretaceous fossil genera Procyrtosia Zaitzev and Proplatypygus Hennig belong here, which makes Psiloderoidinae the oldest lineage in the Mythicomyiidae – and corroborates the findings of Yeates (1994), who examined Australian specimens of the genus Acridophagus and related taxa in his cladistic study and claimed them to be the most plesiomorphic of his ‘Mythicomyiinae’.