Three years ago our esteemed colleague Brian Stuckenberg, the doyen of Afrotropical dipterology, left his professional fraternity and this world. Time flies like an arrow, yet our memories of Brian do not fade. This is best attested by the present issue of African Invertebrates that commemorates Brian's life and scientific career with contributions made by 37 fellow dipterists from 15 countries.
The Gedenkschrift opens with a dedication article by A.H. Kirk-Spriggs, who provides a biography and summary of Brian's major achievements. The article is supplemented by Brian's previously unpublished reports on his two Madagascan expeditions and includes a full list of his publications.
The following 20 articles deal with the taxonomy, nomenclature, systematics and biogeography of representatives of 19 families of nematoceran and brachyceran Diptera. In total, four new genera and 58 new species are described, with one genus and 16 species named after Brian. Most papers include identification keys. All articles are of a high standard and make a substantial addition to our knowledge of Afrotropical Diptera, still I would like to highlight several contributions. T. Dikow's detailed review of the Mydidae tribe Halterorchini is the first cybertaxonomic article in the history of African Invertebrates. By providing hyperlinks to ZooBank, Morphbank and GBIF, it sets a new standard for future taxonomic publications in the journal. J.-H. Stuke's revision of Stylogaster (Conopidae) is the most comprehensive and richly illustrated study done on this genus in the Afrotropics, and is directly linked to Brian's interest in this genus back in 1960s. Brian also had a particular interest in the bruchomyiine moth flies (Psychodidae) and himself contributed to the study of fossil and modern representatives of the genus Nemopalpus in the article prepared by R. Wagner.
The Afrotropical Diptera fauna is still far from being exhaustively known, and Brian's legacy for the present and upcoming generations of dipterists is to study it in its entirety.
I wish to thank all contributors to this Gedenkschrift and numerous reviewers, who critically evaluated all the manuscripts. Dr A.H. Kirk-Spriggs solicited contributions, co-ordinated the peer-review process and handled correspondence with the authors; this project would not have succeeded without him. I am grateful to Prof. D.J. Brothers, who expertly commented on numerous manuscripts and generously undertook the laborious task of language editing; copy-editing was also done by Prof. M.B. Markus. I sincerely appreciate meticulous work of Mr B. Muller, our graphics editor, and Dr M. Ovechkina, who did the proof-reading of each article and the entire issue. Last but not least, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the Deputy Director of the KwaZulu-Natal Museum Mr S. Miya and the Chief Financial Manager Mr M. Mazibuko for their overall and financial support of the journal. I regret that some manuscripts could not be included in this Gedenkschrift due to technical reasons; they will be published in the next issue of African Invertebrates, thus continuing to commemorate Brian.
