This section provides some answers to your burning questions about the Society and our website.
If you have a question not addressed below, please consider contacting us.
NOT AT ALL! We are a fully international society, based in California. Membership is open to the worldwide community of dipterists and Diptera-enthusiasts, and our mission and activities apply to all across the board - to advance the scientific study, understanding and appreciation of the insect order Diptera.
YES, we are a real international society! Any society must be registered/incorporated in some location in the world. In our case, we are incorporated in the US state of California, where we also have 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. There are no aspects of the Society that are exclusive to North Americans, and all activities and resources (publications, meetings and events, grant and awards, the Directory of World Dipterists, the dipterists mailing list, etc.) are available to the international community of dipterists. In addition, our current governance has representation from four different countries on three continents (yes, they all currently live in California), and this is something that will grow and change over time.
As the last major insect order with no international society, we hope this society will fill that clear need for our scientific community!
The North American Dipterists Society has existed as an informal organization without a constitution or governance of any kind since 1989! (much of the history is laid out on our history page and its associated links). All activities have been accomplished by the hard work of individual volunteers, including holding field meetings every two years, publication of the Fly Times twice per year, and continued maintenance of a society website since 2003.
After the idea of incorporating had being discussed periodically over many years (probably since the early 1990's!), Steve Gaimari (the editor of Fly Times) brought up the topic once again among a large group of dipterists, with a greater urgency due to the need for society backing after the successful bid to host the 10th International Congress of Dipterology (ICDX) in the western US. As had been typical, everyone agreed that moving forward was a good idea, but unlike previous discussions, someone (Gaimari) was finally willing to take the bull by the horns to do the heavy lifting to make it happen.
Although the Society may have started small, with a mainly North American base and focus, over the years the scope has broadened greatly and spread to the international scene, particularly due to the Fly Times and publication of Myia (under the auspices of the Society since volume 9), both of which have long had international authorship and readership.
As one of the older Diptera-focused societies, we are proud to continue under this banner as an incorporated nonprofit organization, developing a new website and providing resources for dipterists worldwide to enjoy.
In developing the website, the webmaster (Steve Gaimari) only held copyright to his own photographs. So he used his own photos to develop the "look and feel" of the banner. Obviously, it is heaviest in acalyptrates because they are his main subjects! The intention, like everything about the society, is that it will grow with time.
Anyone who is interested to add more diversity to the rotating banner of flies is encouraged to submit images, but with strict requirements. That is, each image must be your own (you must hold the copyright) and saved as a .jpg file measuring exactly 460 pixels width, 350 pixels height, 72 pixels/inch.
In submitting your images (to webmaster@dipterists.org) you are verifying that you hold the copyright, and you are giving explicit permission to include your image in the banner or elsewhere on the website. Individual images will not be marked by copyright, although there will be a general thank you listing the photographers who supplied images on the About this Website webpage. The webmaster maintains a folder of properly formatted images submitted, and puts together new banners to add into the rotation periodically (i.e., when we have multiples of 4 for each complete banner), only including images of high photographic quality and composition.