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I hardly like to ask such a bunch of experts as you, but here goes anyway! I'm trying to build up a good reference library for general identification purposes, based on illustrations and visual keys - in other words, not going into too much anatomical detail which would be too complicated for a non-specialist like myself.
In the case of the Diptera, I seem to be able to find only very specialist (and very expensive) single-family books, or books with attractive photographs, but illustrating only a very limited number of species.
What I really need is something which will help me above all place the flies in their respective families, and then in the most straightforward cases, get an idea also of the genus. Bearing in mind that my zone is southern Europe, does anyone have any ideas? Thanks, Sarah

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Hi Sarah,

There is a great new key to the European Diptera families, which is very well illustrated. Unfortunately this key is in Dutch! However, preparations are being made already to translate this key in English. I don't know when this key will be published.
So for the moment you could use the key to families in Volume 1 of "Contributions to a Manual of Palaearctic Diptera" (Papp & Darvas eds; 2000). Unfortunately the volumes of this Manual are very expensive.

I hope there are others who can give you the title of another key which is both currently available and not extremely expensive.

Jan Willem

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Thanks Jan. It seems so difficult to find what I'm looking for and at a reasonable cost. Perhaps I should learn Dutch!!! Sarah