Platystomatidae

Harym, Younes El & Korneyev, Valery, 2023, New additions to the fauna of the superfamily Tephritoidea (Diptera) of Morocco, Zootaxa 5360 (4), pp. 487-514 : 495

Family Platystomatidae

Of the four subfamilies occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, only the members of Platystomatinae genera Platystoma Meigen and Rivellia Robineau-Desvoidy are known from North Africa, belonging, each with three species in the region; in Morocco, four species of the family were known ( El-Hawagry 2017; Kettani et al. 2022). Larvae of Rivellia feed on root nodules of various Fabaceae plants, but in the other genera, larvae may live as zoosaprophages on dead insects or in decaying plant matter or fungi ( Ferrar 1987; Korneyev et al., 2015). In general, adults of Afrotropical platystomatids occur in dense forest and forest edge habitat types such as shaded areas, grasslands, or agricultural habitats ( Whittington & Kirk-Spriggs 2021). Adults may be attracted to malodorous substances: faeces, dung, sap, rotting fruits, and even human sweat in the case of Rivellia (McAlpine 1998) .