O. Merkl szerk.: Folia Entomologica Hungarica 69. (Budapest, 2008)

similarity coefficient based solely on presence/absence, i.e. the Jaccard index. This equals the number of shared species per a total number of species. Five hybotid species were found. They belong to the genus Crossopalpus BIGOT, 1857. I could not identify them at the species level using SMITH'S (1969) comprehensive work; they appear to be new to science. Both adults and larvae live a predaceous way of life, they are found in different kinds of dung. The present hybotid material is small (22+45 individuals, 4 spp. each). Three out of the 5 species shared, thus Jaccard i = 0.6. The case of sepsids seems rather controversial due to the small sample size. A total of 15 specimens of 4 species are preserved from elephant dung and 48 specimens of 5 species from cattle dung. Only 2 species are shared (Jaccard i = 0.29). The material of the family Sphaeroceridae is the richest both as regards the number of individuals and the number of species. Representatives of a total of 35 species have been preserved; 27 species from elephant dung (462 specimens) and 29 species from cattle dung (511 specimens). The number of shared species is 21; thus Jaccard i = 0.6. Taking into consideration the comparatively low individual numbers, this is indeed a high proportion. Ten of the 35 species are new to science, being under description at the present, while further 12 are new for the fauna of the RSA. Representatives of 13 different species of the family Muscidae have been preserved. Five of them developed in elephant dung, and 8 in cattle dung, and no shared species was found. This is remarkable, even though the individual numbers (16+28) are relatively low (Jaccard i = 0.0) DISCUSSION Admittedly, the present study is based on a quite limited number of samples, i.e. 1+4 dung samples acting as 'habitat patches', several thousand flies studied in the field, and 1147 flies studied in the HNHM. Therefore, I consider the present results as a preliminary outcome. However, it is clear that results appear to differ across families. The families Hybotidae and Sphaeroceridae provide the majority (two-third) of all the species collected. The majority of their species occurs simultaneously both on elephant and cattle dung suggesting that most of them can shift between elephant dung and cow pats as alternative nutrient