Acknowledgements, Tachinidae of America North of Mexico

■ Taxonomic and Host Catalogue of the Tachinidae of America North of Mexico

The following is from pp. 15–17 of:
O'Hara, J.E. and Wood, D.M. 2004. Catalogue of the Tachinidae (Diptera) of America north of Mexico. Memoirs on Entomology, International 18: iv + 410 pp.

Acknowledgements

This catalogue could not have been prepared in its present form with extensive type information without the generous cooperation of colleagues and curators throughout the world. Our sincere thanks are extended to all who answered our queries about types in their care or entered into discussions with us about tachinid classification, nomenclature, and relationships. We also wish to acknowledge the tremendous contribution to tachinidology of two prior catalogues, the North American catalogue by Sabrosky & Arnaud (1965) and the Palearctic catalogue by Herting (1984), both of which influenced us greatly and laid the foundations for the present work.

We are especially grateful to the three reviewers of our manuscript who offered valuable advice on cataloguing format, corrected errors, and suggested other changes that have noticeably improved the catalogue. The reviewers were Norm Woodley (United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, United States), Jeff Cumming (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa) and Dan Hansen (University of Minnesota, St. Paul, United States).

The many persons who assisted us with tachinid information are acknowledged here in alphabetical order: Paul Arnaud, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, United States, provided information on types in CAS and elsewhere; Christer Bergström, Uppsala, Sweden, assisted with the interpretation of several northern species; Jeff Boettner, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, United States, searched for Coquillett types in the University of Massachusetts entomology collection; Rob Brooks, University of Kansas, Lawrence, United States, assisted with trips to SEMK by JEOH; Yuri Chernov, Severtsov Institute of Evolutionary Animal Morphology and Ecology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, made it possible for DMW to collect Tachinidae in Siberia; Roger Crosskey, Natural History Museum, London, England, facilitated repeated trips to BMNH by DMW and discussed with him tachinid nomenclature and classification; Cezary Bystrowski, Forest Research Institute, Warsaw, Poland, provided a new distributional record for a rare species; Roy Danielsson, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, helped arrange a trip to MZLU by JEOH and provided much-needed assistance with the location of Zetterstedt types; Michael Engel, University of Kansas, Lawrence, United States, assisted with a trip to SEMK by DMW; Graham Griffiths, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, gave expert advice on the proper formation of names whenever we had difficulty with gender agreement; David Grimaldi, American Museum of Natural History, New York, United States, facilitated our trips to AMNH and our examination of types in that collection; Patrick Grootaert, Institut royal des Sciences naturelles de Belgique, Bruxelles, Belgium, located van der Wulp types in ISNB; Geoff Hancock, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, searched for an Olivier type; Dan Hansen, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, United States, provided new distribution records for several species; Benno Herting, Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde, Stuttgart, Germany, facilitated trips by DMW to the Staatliches Museum and discussed with him many aspects of tachinid systematics; Herman de Jong, Zoological Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, searched for van der Wulp types; Marion Kotrba, Zoologische Staatssammlung München, Munich, Germany, provided information on a Weidemann type in ZMHB; Thomas Pape, Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet, Stockholm, Sweden, assisted with our visit to Sweden and our examination of types in NHRS; Philip Perkins, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States, assisted JEOH with the location of types in MCZ; Adrian Pont, Oxford University, Oxford, England, generously shared information on the publications and types of Bigot from manuscripts in preparation; Marc Pollet, Institute for the Promotion of Innovation through Science and Technology in Flanders, Brussels, Belgium, hand-carried van der Wulp types from ISNB to Ottawa for our examination; Irene Rademacher, Naturmuseum Senckenberg, Frankfurt am Main, provided information on Jaennicke types in SMF; Vera Richter, Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia, shared her extensive knowledge of Siberian species with DMW during several crucial discussions of Holarctic species; Knut Rognes, Hafrsfjord, Norway, assisted with the location of a type in ZMUO; Peter Sehnal, Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria, provided valuable information on some types in NHMW; Hiroshi Shima, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan, graciously funded our visits to Fukuoka, Lund and Stockholm, assisted with our examination of his collection at Kyushu University, and discussed tachinid classification and relationships; Geir Söli, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway, provided information on a type in ZMUO; John Strazanac, West Virginia University, Morgantown, United States, provided many new distribution records for Virginia and West Virginia; Hans-Peter Tschorsnig, Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde, Stuttgart, Germany, shared his ideas on tachinid classification and relationships; Norm Woodley, USDA, Washington, United States, kindly assisted with our numerous trips to USNM, sent us information on Belvosia distributions, and provided information on types in his care when we could not visit personally; Nigel Wyatt, Natural History Museum, London, England, repeatedly provided information on types in BMNH; Theo Zeegers, Eikenlaan, The Netherlands, examined van der Wulp types in Leiden (RMNH) on our behalf; and Joachim Ziegler, Deutsches Entomologisches Institut, Eberswalde, Germany, searched for Röder and Wiedemann types in DEI and provided information on a type in ZMHB.

We are much indebted to the following persons at our Centre for general discussions about nomenclature, classification, and catalogue preparation: Jeff Cumming, Gary Gibson, Don Lafontaine, Jeff Skevington and Dick Vockeroth. Don Lafontaine, Yves Bousquet and Henri Goulet helped us update host names in the Lepidoptera, Coleoptera and Hymenoptera, respectively. Technical assistance from the following staff at our Centre is greatly appreciated: Jennifer Read wrote a computer program to produce a catalogue output from our Platypus® database, Bruce Cooper updated tachinid distributions from the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Doug Kritsch assisted with literature, Harold Walther assisted with loans, Dave Moorhouse prepared the tachinid image for the front cover, and Rob Fairchild (a summer student) helped prepare the index. This study was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)(1) (No. 12440241) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (held by H. Shima, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan).