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, tradition ...

entomologist. 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) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. 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 o ...

and

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

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 the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using POD (pri ...

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

paraphyletic.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 of organisms or other evolving elements that is of mixed evolutionary origin. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as homoplasies, which are explained as a result of conver ...

); 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 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 '' Po ...

, 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