Andy Z. Lehrer (; 16 May 1930 – 6 February 2014) was a

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

entomologist Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

. From 1996 until his death, he worked as a research associate in the laboratory of Zoology at the

University of Tel Aviv Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and research of the ci ...

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. For several years, he studied

flesh flies Sarcophagidae () are a family of flies commonly known as flesh flies. They differ from most flies in that they are ovoviviparous, opportunistically depositing hatched or hatching maggots instead of eggs on carrion, dung, decaying material, or op ...

and

blow flies The Calliphoridae (commonly known as blowflies, blow flies, blow-flies, carrion flies, bluebottles, or greenbottles) are a family of insects in the order Diptera, with almost 1,900 known species. The maggot larvae, often used as fishing bait, ...

from all over the world. Lehrer was born in Iaşi, Romania. He died in February 2014, aged 83. For many years he

self-published Self-publishing is an author-driven publication of any media without the involvement of a third-party publisher. Since the advent of the internet, self-published usually depends upon digital platforms and print-on-demand technology, ranging fr ...

the journal ''Fragmenta Dipterologica,'' for which he was almost the sole contributing author.

Toponymy dispute

In 2005, Lehrer reclassified the genus ''

Bengalia ''Bengalia'' is a genus of blow flies in the family Calliphoridae with one authority considering the genus to belong to a separate family Bengaliidae.Lehrer, A.Z., 2003, Bengaliidae n. fam. Une nouvelle famille de Diptera Cyclorrhapha. Entom. Croa ...

'' into 11 new genera in 4

subfamilies In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zool ...

within a newly designated family, Bengaliidae. The family designation was disputed by Rognes (2006) who noted that it was equivalent to the already established tribe Bengaliini, and that treating it as a family renders the

Calliphoridae The Calliphoridae (commonly known as blowflies, blow flies, blow-flies, carrion flies, bluebottles, or greenbottles) are a family of insects in the order Diptera, with almost 1,900 known species. The maggot larvae, often used as fishing bait, ...

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

.Rognes, K. 2006. Bengalomania – A review of Andy Z. Lehrer's book on Bengalia Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830 and related works (Diptera, Calliphoridae). Studia dipterologica 12: 443–47

/ref> Further Rognes considered all the new genera created as Synonym (taxonomy), junior names for ''Bengalia''. Lehrer's work added 49 species to the already described 41 species and 18 of these new species were treated as invalid by Rognes. At present, major sources of Dipteran taxonomy do not recognize Lehrer's 10 new genera as valid, nor the 18 new species treated as invalid by Rognes (e.g.). This dispute reflects that at present, there is no consensus as to the best way to subdivide the Calliphoridae, which many authorities acknowledge is not a natural group (in this case,

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage that includes organisms with mixed evolutionary origin but does not include their most recent common ancestor. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as Homoplasy, homoplasies ...

); the BioSystematic Database of World Diptera, for example, states "The Calliphoridae are marked as a polyphyletic group of convenience as at the present we are unwilling to reduce the

Oestridae Botflies, also known as warble flies, heel flies, and gadflies, are flies of the family Oestridae. Their larvae are internal parasites of mammals, some species growing in the host's flesh and others within the gut. ''Dermatobia hominis'' is t ...

to a subordinated group within a monophyletic Calliphoridae nor to elevate a number of other groups (

Polleniidae Polleniidae is a family of flies in the order Diptera. There are at least 6 genera and more than 190 described species placed definitively in Polleniidae, and other genera whose placement here is considered uncertain. The largest genus is '' Pol ...

, Helicoboscidae, and Bengaliidae) so as to properly delimit both Calliphoridae and Oestridae

Similarly, the dispute at the generic level is that some of Lehrer's genera are paraphyletic, and, additionally, that they are based largely or exclusively upon features of the male genitalia, and it is therefore impossible to identify most female specimens to subfamily, let alone genus (the rejection of Lehrer's subdivisions therefore being both taxonomic and a matter of practicality). The dispute at the species level centers on the fact that Lehrer did not include or examine 24 of the 41 known species in his revision, so of the 31 species he validly described that were not immediately synonymized, many could still ''potentially'' be synonyms of these 24 excluded species.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lehrer, Andy 1930 births 2014 deaths Israeli entomologists Romanian entomologists Scientists from Iași Tel Aviv University people Dipterists