The fauna of sciarid flies from the Dominican Republic (Diptera: Sciaridae)

This report is the first comprehensive study on sciarids within the
Caribbean fauna, which includes 50 species belonging to 11 genera,
44 of them new to science. Forty five species were collected in the
Dominican Republic, five in Puerto Rico. The species belong to the
following genera: Leptosciarella (2), Pseudosciara (4, two of them
previously known), Chaetosciara (1), Cratyna (1), Hyperlasion (2,
one of them previously known), Pseudolycoriella (13), Bradysia (16,
one of them previously known), Scatopsciara (5), Corynoptera (2),
Keilbachia (1) and Epidapus (3, one of them previously known).

Assessing the Caribbean fauna is handicapped by lack of information
on sciarids from neighboring mainland’s, especially Florida and South
America. Nevertheless, due to thorough knowledge of the sciarid fauna
of the Palaearctic Region and partial knowledge of that of the Nearctic
Region and Central America, we can say that Caribbean sciarids show
great similarities to Holarctic faunistic elements. This is particularly
true for Leptosciarella, Chaetosciara, Keilbachia, Scatopsciara,
most species of Bradysia, Corynoptera and Epidapus, and at least
partly also for Pseudolycoriella. The only endemic Neotropical genus
is Pseudosciara with four described species, and the two species
of the Bradysia pararufescens group.