SPILOSMYLINAE Krüger, 1913a

Winterton, Shaun L., Martins, Caleb Califre, Makarkin, Vladimir, Ardila-Camacho, Adrian & Wang, Yongjie, 2019, Lance lacewings of the world (Neuroptera: Archeosmylidae, Osmylidae, Saucrosmylidae): review of living and fossil genera, Zootaxa 4581 (1), pp. 1-99 : 59

SPILOSMYLINAE Krüger, 1913a

Type genus. Spilosmylus Kolbe, 1897: 34

Diagnosis. Antenna shorter than FW; ocelli sometimes with median (or all) ocelli absent; pronotum length subequal to width; female forecoxa without processes; wing shape variable, including ovoid, sub-triangular, elongate or slightly falcate; costal area relatively narrow, subcostal veinlets simple (rarely forked) and without interlinking crossveins, densely spaced; trichosors present along entire wing margin; wings typically hyaline with dark pattern (especially FW) as mottling, bands, or fenestrations, sometimes with embossed spot present in FW CuP branches; FW with single sc-r crossvein basally; RP with 8-16 branches that may be slightly sinuous distally, 1–3 distinct gradate series in both wings, often dense crossveins in basal part of wing; FW M fork close to level with origin of RP1; MP base usually with a spur vein; HW medial area not expanded; CuA usually with more branches in HW than in FW; HW CuP short, simple, sometimes forked near wing margin; male abdominal tergites 8 and 9 as separate sclerites without scent glands, gonarcus narrow, arch-like and lacking setae, entoprocesses narrow and curved, mediuncus with a basal sclerotized arm, parameres present, fused medially as a single sclerite; female genitalia with sternite 8 as a small, knob-like process, located posteriorly proximal to gonocoxite 9, gonapophyses and gonocoxites 9 closely associated or appearing fused, spermathecal duct greatly elongate and coiled.

Comments. Spilosmylinae comprise three extant and two extinct genera widely distributed throughout tropical and subtropical parts of the Old World, ranging from southern Africa and Madagascar, throughout Asia and Australasia; while being found in Australia the subfamily is restricted to northern tropical regions. Spilosmylinae is by far the most species rich subfamily with 118 species, the bulk of which being placed in Spilosmylus . The distinction of Spilosmylus from Thaumatosmylus and Thyridosmylus is poorly defined and lacks characters which diagnose any one of these genera from the other two consistently across all species. Diagnostic characters presently used are themselves highly variable with multiple exceptions and species exhibiting apparent intermediate conditions. In their phylogenetic analysis, Winterton et al. (2017) recovered Thaumatosmylus as sister to a clade containing Spilosmylus and Thyridosmylus , with all three genera as monophyletic. Traditionally placed in Spilosmylinae (e.g., Krüger, 1913), Lysmus was instead recovered in Protosmylinae as sister to Gryposmylus . Spilosmylinae had been rarely treated since important taxonomic and faunistic revisions by Kimmins (1942) and New (1986, 1988, 1991), although several species of spilosmylines have been described recently ( Xu et al., 2017) ( Thyridosmylus ) and Badano & Winterton (2017) ( Spilosmylus ) to complement phylogenetic studies of Thyridosmylus by Wang et al. (2011) and Zhao et al. (2013). Larvae inhabit riparian zones of lotic watercourses.

Included genera. Ensiosmylus Khramov , Imanosmylus Makarkin , Spilosmylus Kolbe , Thaumatosmylus Krüger , Thyridosmylus Krüger.