Adaptive radiation in the subgenus Scaptodrosophila of Australian Drosophila

Abstract

UNTIL a recent survey, based on the two major museum collections of Australia¹, the Australian Drosophila fauna was poorly known and few endemic species had been described. This survey covered 81 species including 40 described as new. The world total of Drosophila species is known to exceed 1,250 (ref. 2); the Australian fauna thus represents about 6% of this total. By comparison with the world Drosophila fauna, the Australian total contains a disproportionately large number of species (45 out of 81) in the subgenus Scaptodrosophila, most of them endemic although a few are also known from neighbouring South-east Asian and/or Pacific regions. The Australian Drosophila fauna is therefore unique in that nowhere else have members of the subgenus Scaptodrosophila so dominated the Drosophila fauna of a large region.