Dear Dipterists,

Peter Dyte sadly died at home last weekend. This was announced by John Muggleton at the BENHS Council meeting on Thursday. He was found by Richard Adams, a former colleague at the Slough Laboratory and a near neighbour, who regularly called on him. This was quite unexpected as he was not known to have anything physically wrong that might have been responsible. He was 82 earlier this year.

Please let anyone know who I have omitted from this distribution and could those at museums please inform any colleagues who might have known him.

A provisional date for the funeral is 18 July and John will let me know when the date has been confirmed.

Best wishes,

Peter Chandler

On behalf of the organizers:

The park would like to announce the 2012 BioBlitz to be held June 19-21, 2012, which will concentrate on the Order Diptera (flies). Dr. Riley Nelson from Brigham Young University will be leading the effort, with assistance from the Nevada Department of Agriculture and other entomologists.

The event will begin with a workshop about Diptera life history, collecting methods, and more. Following that, a 48-hour collection period will commence, and participants will have the chance to visit many areas of Great Basin National Park. At the same time, numerous educational programs will be held to share the importance of Diptera with park visitors and staff. At noon on June 21, everyone will reconvene for a closing lunch and to hear the preliminary results of this biodiversity discovery event.

The park is providing free camping for participants. For more BioBlitz information or a registration form, please email Gretchen Baker, or call + (1) 775-234-7331 x251.
Detailed schedule

Last month chironomid expert Ernst Josef Fittkau paased away at the age of 84. Notices were posted on the Chironomid homepage (http://insects.ummz.lsa.umich.edu/~ethanbr/chiro/) and in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (http://trauer.sueddeutsche.de/Traueranzeige/ErnstJosef-Fittkau#).

Also see the Wikepedia page on Ernst Fittkau at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Josef_Fittkau.

First announcement

The 8th International Congress of Dipterology will be held at Potsdam near Berlin, Germany on 10-15 August 2014. The organizing committee consists of Marion Kotrba, Netta Dorchin, Frank Menzel and Joachim Ziegler.

Information can be found here: http://www.icd8.info.

Eddie John, who coordinates the butterfly recording scheme for Cyprus, together with David Sparrow, who has co-authored a very impressive book on the Reptiles and Amphibians of Cyprus, (though both live in Britain) have embarked on a project to produce a guide to the Wildlife of Cyprus. They are asking various people to help with this, covering different groups of organisms. They have got me involved mainly in providing them with quite a few images but have asked if I could help in either writing or finding someone to write a small chapter on Diptera.
What they are looking for someone willing to write a chapter of perhaps 6 pages which gives some background information about the order, then an indication of the of the main families and then a few representative species. Chapters are aimed at below expert level, but authoritative in style to appeal to those with a keen interest in Cyprus wildlife. They are hoping to have the texts available by the end of the year.

They don't expect the book to be a commercial enterprise so are not in a position to pay for the contributions. The objective is too keep the book affordable in the hope of stimulating greater interest in the island's biodiversity among both tourists and residents and all involved are doing this for nothing as they feel they want to 'put something back'.

I do not think there would be a great deal of work involved. There is no need for great deal of text, more important to illustrate a few of the common or distinctive representative species though it would be necessary to ensure that these are correctly identified and that names are those in current use. I do have images of a few species taken in Cyprus which I can send you if you wish.
Anyway I think at this stage that is sufficient as preliminary information. Please let me know if anyone might be interested or if you want more information / have any questions I will hope to help.

Please contact me direct in the first instance if anyone might be interested.

Many thanks

Alan