S. Mahunka szerk.: Folia Entomologica Hungarica 55. (Budapest, 1994)

Research on gallflies started in 1830, when Meigen described the species L. lucens, which later was designated to be the type species of the genus. Few decades later further two related species were found (L. similis Schiner, 1854 and L. rufitarsis Loew, 1858) in Austria. More than a century passed when L. pullitarsis Doskocil et Chvála, 1971 was found. Besides these four, only one more European species (L. baltica Karps, 1978) was described in the genus. Outside Europe, in 1976 the species L. brevipilosa Narthsuk, 1976 was described from the Far East, and in the following year the subspecies L. rufitarsis orientális Nartshuk. Later three more new species: L. frigida, L. japonica and L. vallicola were found by Kanmiya (1982) in Japan. Lipara species are indigenous in the Palaearctic region. Today we know nine Lipara species and one subspecies, of which only five are native in Europe. Their distribution area generally extends to the Asian part of Russia and penetrates into Mongolia, Japan and Israel (Chvála et al. 1974, Kanmiya 1983, Nartshuk 1984). There are species introduced into North America (Sabrosky 1965). The first literature data on the occurrence of L. lucens and L. rufitarsis in Hungary may be found in Thalhammer's catalogue (1899). L. similis is first mentioned in the check-list of Soós (1943). L. pullitarsis is published in the guide book to Chloropid flies (Dely-Draskovits 1978). The fifth European species (L. baltica) has never been collected in Hungary. The first European summary on Hymenopterans and Dipterans developing in reed is given by Giraud (1963). He described a series of new species of parasitoids developing in the galls of L. lucens and L. similis. The work of Reijnvaan and Docters van Leeuwen (1906) deals with the life history of the species living in galls, their parasitoids and the morphology of the gall itself. Around the same time Wagner's work (1907) was published on L. lucens galls, mentioning inquilines and parasitoids. Henriksen (1918-19) in his study on the biology of European species of the water-inhabiting Hymenoptera treats the parasitoids of the Lipara galls, as well. Blair (1932, 1944) in his publications on L. lucens galls and the inquilines and parasitoids developing in them gives many observational data. Varley and Butler (1933) deals with the ontogeny of a L. lucens parasitoid. Ruppolt (1956-57) examined the different developmental stages of L. lucens in the laboratory treating their parasitoids, as well. The boom of relevant papers on this topic began in the Netherlands by Mook (1961, 1967), followed by Austria (Waitzbauer 1969, Waitzbauer et al. 1973). In Czechoslovakia teams worked on the parasitoids developing in reed (Chvála et al. 1974, Hudec et al. 1981), while Fulmek (1968) compiled the list of parasitoids of the European gall-forming species. His work is often based on wrong or misinterpreted data of the literature. Askew (1971) summarized studies on parasitoid species. The Russian guide book to Hymenopterans gives results of numerous rearings (Kasparjan 1981). Even in recent years several parasitoid species v/ere raised from Lipara galls in Germany (Abraham and Carstensen 1982, Wolf 1988, 1991), and in Belgium (De Bruyn 1987). An overview was given on the fauna of the reed vegetation in Switzerland, including the parasitoids developing in Lipara galls (Dely-Draskovits et al. 1992, 1993). A new Braconid species, developing in L. similis was described by J. Papp (1992) based on Hungarian and Swiss specimens. Furthermore, there are two unpublished theses on Lipara species, providing numerous independent results on several parasitoids (Frey-Wolf 1976, Zürich and Carstensen 1981, Hamburg).