Two great dipterists are gone in the last two weeks.

Vadim Filippovich Zaitsev, former Deputy Director of the Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, the most for his studies of Palaearctic Bombyliidae, died on February 5, 2012 at the age of 77, in Saint Petersburg.

Donald Henry [Don] Colless, former Senior Research Officer and Chief Curator, ANIC in 1960-1987, known for his Diptera chapters in "The Insects of Australia" (with D. K. McAlpine) and his papers on Australian Cyclorrhapha, peacefully passed away at night of February 16/17, 2012 at the age of 90 years in Canberra.

Rest in Peace.

Due to increasing problems with mail from the site being rejected by some mailservers I have changed some settings. These settings, I am afraid, can only be tested in realtime. I apologise in advance if it has adverse effects that you migh now not receive any emails. The link to contact the webmaster should still work, so drop me a note if you have any problems.

Paul

Whether any one care or not, the Systema Dipterorum (www.diptera.org) online database to names of flies has been closed down.

This database which has had various names over the years as I have migrated from different jobs but never really has been supported to provide information about fly names is finally being retired as I have been kicked out by Bob Robinson of Smithsonian of my last home after almost a half century of what I thought was a useful and productive association.

However, this has a positive aspect. Clearly the Smithsonian has decided Diptera names and associated information has no value to the public. Whether that is true or not now can be determined. So, if you feel Systema Dipterorum was useful, complain! The key players are Jon Coddington (coddingtonj@si.edu) and Bob Robinson (robinsonb@si.edu).

Sincerely,

Chris [Thompson]
By now the site has re-opened.

Dear colleagues,

I would like to inform you and to invite you to the 5th International Simuliidae Symposium which will take place between 3rd and 7th September 2012 in Bratislava (Department of Zoology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia). The 3rd September will be for registration and in the evening a welcome reception. Lectures will be on 4 and 6 September and on 7 September a.m. On 5 September a whole day field excursion is planned.

Within few weeks the registration form with more detailed information will be sent ou. All information and the registration form will be available also on the web page http://zoology.fns.uniba.sk/simulium2012/.

For this email I am using a slightly updated list of receipts based mostly on the email lists from the previous symposia, therefore probably following three weaknesses can be involved: a) some of you will receive it in multiple copies; b) this information is sent to receipts who are not working with simuliids; c) some of potentially interested participants will not receive this information. I apologize to all these groups and if you know somebody from the last one, please inform him about the symposium.

Best regards,

Matus

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Matus Kudela
Department of Zoology
Comenius University
Mlynska dolina
SK-842 15 Bratislava
Slovakia

I would like to inform you all that the Volume 27 of Dipteron-Wroclaw (online pdf version) is available! Please, see http://pte.au.poznan.pl/dipteron/biuletyn.html.

A Happy New Year 2012!

Best wishes,

Andrzej J. Woznica

(Dipteron-Wroclaw - Editor in Chief)