Tachinidae
family of flies
The Tachinidae are a large and variable family of true flies within the insect order Diptera, with more than 8,200 known species and many more to be discovered. Over 1,300 species have been described in North America alone. Insects in this family commonly are called tachinid flies or simply tachinids. As far as is known, they all are protelean parasitoids, or occasionally parasites, of arthropods, usually other insects. The family is known from many habitats in all zoogeographical regions and is especially diverse in South America.
Taxonomy
Just like that of all Diptera, the taxonomy of Tachinidae is complex. The name Tachinidae was first validly proposed by Robineau-Desvoidy in 1830, but in the form "Tachinariae." Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830 thus has priority despite the name correction, and this applies to Tachinidae (for the family) and to Tachininae (for the subfamily), in accordance with the ICZN rules on the formation of group names (Article 36.1).
There may be confusion between this family name and its homonym used by Fleming in 1921 to describe a family of Coleoptera. The latter usage was invalidated by the ICZN in 1993 (Opinion 1743), which corrected the spelling of Tachinidae Fleming, 1821 (Insecta, Coleoptera) to Tachinusidae to avoid homonymy with Tachinidae Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830 (Insecta, Diptera).
Life cycle
Reproductive strategies vary greatly between tachinid species, largely, but not always clearly, according to their respective life cycles.
The public source identifies “Tachinidae” as family of flies. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Tachinidae, family and flies.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q235715. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1830, 1921, 1993 and 1743.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tachinidae” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.