Welcome to Systematics of the Prosopistomatidae (Ephemeroptera)

This site hosts information on the mayfly family Prosopistomatidae (Insecta, Ephemeroptera), an unusual family of mayflies occurring in Africa, Madagascar, Asia, some of the Pacific Islands, northern Australia, and Europe. 

Brief history of Prosopistomatidae

First discovered in France by Geoffroy (1762), thought to be a crustacean

Latreille (1833) named Prosopistoma variegatum from Madagascar, did not erect type (still considered a crustacean)
Joly (1871) and Joly and Joly (1872) realised that these were nymphs belonging to the insect Order Ephemeroptera
Eaton (1884) erected P. variegatum, as the holotype
Records from Africa - Vayssière (1893),  (Gillies 1954; Gillies 1956)
Middle East (Levant area) (Alouf 1977)
Oriental region  (Lieftinck 1932) (Peters 1967), (Soldán & Braasch 1984), (Tong & Dudgeon 2000), (Sartori & Gattolliat 2003), (Zhou & Zheng 2004)
the Australasian region (Peters 1967), (Pearson & Penridge 1979) (Campbell & Hubbard 1998)
New species are being described from  Africa (7 spp), Madagascar (5 spp) and Comores (1 sp).

An interactive key to the nymphs of the Afrotropical species, created in LUCID is presented.