---

Interesting ... it does seem to be a pattern that the large, dramatic tachinids come from more montane regions. My samples from French Guiana have had no large, bristly tachinids and, as you say, when I have been to the lowland neotropics I have found it very hard to see tachinids - I am sure they are there but they are not making themselves visible at ground level. Perhaps they inhabit to upper forest canopy or the darker parts of the rainforest but they don't have the same habits as European species.