Preface

More than 20 years have passed since a complete list of Finnish flies was published by Walter Hackman[62,61]. Update papers by Hans Silfverberg[157,158,159,160,161] have provided listings of deletions and additions. As these modifications accumulated it became more and more difficult to keep track of the full Finnish fly fauna. At the same time many new names were introduced and others found invalid, incorrectly used or synonymized. Most importantly the full dipterous fauna of Europe has been catalogued in the monumental Catalogue of Palearctic Diptera[165]. Identifying fly species depends largely on keys. Older keys are next to useless if the links between current and old nomenclature are not properly mapped. Simple lists of synonyms are not the perfect solution as the dipterous literature is ripe with incorrect uses of otherwise valid names (the auct. nec. problem). Ideally one should have an exact cross-reference from used names to currently valid names for each key and identification guide. Even old papers from 1930's and 1940's are useful if problems with the nomenclature can be circumvented.

This situation prompted the creation of an up-to-date check list of the Finnish fly fauna with references to the older names as used in Finnish entomological literature and other sources valuable for dipterists in Finland.

I'd like to thank all persons who have helped in preparing this manuscript: Tapani Järveläinen and Sakari Kerppola for comments on the hoverfly section; Iain MacGowan for insights into the Finnish Lonchaeid fauna, Gunilla Ståhls-Mäkelä and Pekka Vilkamaa for professional comments and access to the diptera collection of the Zoological Museum of Helsinki; Kaj Winqvist for many comments and also for endless and very contagious enthusiasm of things dipterologous.

J.K.
in Helsinki, Finland
January 6, 2012