Data for the present study have been compiled from specimens collected from different Egyptian localities by the authors and their coworkers, in addition to specimens preserved in the main Egyptian insect collections. A great deal of information is taken also from relevant literature and website databases (Pape 2017; Pape and Thompson 2017).
Scope
This catalog treats all names of taxa, whether taxonomically valid or invalid, of the families Calliphoridae, Rhiniidae, and Sarcophagidae (superfamily: Oestroidea) recorded from Egypt.
Arrangement of taxa
All taxa are arranged alphabetically. Synonyms of species including all available and unavailable names are chronologically listed. The most important synonyms of genera are listed as well. Only important variant spellings (termed “incorrect spelling” or “misspelling”) are listed at the end of the synonyms, especially those mentioned in Egyptian studies.
Typographical treatment of names
Family-group and Genus-group headings are left-justified and written in bold uppercase letters. Species-group headings are left-justified and written in bold italicized lowercase letters except the first letter which is written in uppercase. Authorship of genera, subgenera, and species are written in regular lowercase letters except the first letter which is written in uppercase.
Taxonomically valid genus-group names (senior synonyms) are listed again in bold italicized lowercase letters (except the first uppercase letter) and left-justified under the headings followed by the reference including author, year, and pages. Type species are given after the reference line, followed by method of their fixation. Also, taxonomically valid species-group names combined with their original genera (senior synonyms) are listed again in regular italicized lower case letters (except the first uppercase letter) and left-justified under the headings followed by the reference including author, year, pages, and type locality.
For each genus and species-group name, associated synonyms are listed in a chronological order. They are written in regular italicized lowercase letters (except the first uppercase letter), followed by the reference and other data as in senior taxa.
Type localities
The type locality is given after the reference of each species-group taxon. Countries and islands of type localities are usually broken down to states, provinces, archipelagos, ecological zones, towns, and villages. These “sublocalities” are placed in parentheses after the main locality, e.g., “Egypt (Sinai).” The sublocalities may be more broken down to “smaller sublocalities.” These “smaller sublocalities” are written after a colon following the sublocality, e.g., “Egypt (Gebel Elba: Wadi Edeib).”
Egyptian localities and dates of collection
Ecologists divide Egypt into eight ecological zones, namely Coastal Strip, Lower Nile Valley and Delta, Upper Nile Valley, Fayoum, Eastern Desert, Western Desert, Sinai, and Gebel Elba (Fig. 1). All these zones but one have greater affiliation to the Palaearctic Region, whereas the Gebel Elba ecological zone, the southeastern triangle of Egypt, has greater affiliation to the Afrotropical Region (El-Hawagry and Gilbert 2014). In the present catalog, the Egyptian localities and dates of collection are given for each species to map a picture for the distribution and activity periods of flies in the different ecological zones of Egypt. Localities within each ecological zone are arranged alphabetically and written after a colon following the ecological zone, e.g., “Coastal Strip: Alexandria, Mariout, Matrouh.”
Data from specimens preserved in the Egyptian insect collections and literature records, in addition to specimens collected from different Egyptian localities by the first author and his coworkers, are the main sources for this part of the catalog (Additional file 1).
If the Egyptian localities or dates of collection were not known from the literature or from the specimens deposited in the collections or collected by the author, the term “Unknown” is used.
