The Tachinidae are a large family of higher flies, the members of which are all endoparasitic on other arthropods, almost exclusively insects. The family is cosmopolitan in distribution and comprises over 8,000 described species arranged into four subfamilies and numerous tribes. One tribe, the Polideini (= Lyphini of some authors) in the subfamily Tachininae is the subject of this monograph. The Polideini are redefined on a phylogenetic basis to include 36 genera and 139 described species. The tribe is perhaps the most morphologically diverse in the Tachinidae, ranging from tiny black species with reduced setation to large, colourful and well bristled flies of varied appearance. The described species gathered together into the Polideini were once distributed among nine other tribes in two subfamilies. At the generic level within the Polideini, four generic names are raised out of synonymy, ten generic names are newly synonymized, and three generic names are reinstated as synonyms. Most species of the Polideini are found in the New World with only nine described species presently known from the Old World, all in the Palearctic region. The New World Polideini are exceptionally diverse in form and number and will probably exceed 200 species when the little-known Neotropical fauna has been revised. The subject of this revision is the polideine fauna of America north of Mexico. This fauna comprises 16 genera including one new genus, and 43 species including 11 new species. Nomenclatural changes affecting previously described species include six new synonymies and one reinstated synonymy, 15 new combinations and 10 reinstated combinations, and one new replacement name. Hosts for polideines of America north of Mexico are not well known but include caterpillars belonging to several families of moths, crickets, wood cockroaches and scorpions; there are also single records from a centipede and a spider. This monograph includes descriptions of the genera and species of the Polideini of America north of Mexico, keys for their recognition, four colour plates showing the dorsal and lateral aspects of 16 species, 14 plates of illustrations of taxonomically important structures, maps of species distributions, a phylogenetic analysis of the taxa, and a listing of all known hosts. New taxa: Nigrilypha n. gen., Dichocera latifrons n. sp., Mauromyia macrobrevis n. sp., Exoristoides blattarius n. sp., Exoristoides sabroskyi n. sp., Chrysotachina auriceps n. sp., Chrysotachina infrequens n. sp., Chrysotachina longipennis n. sp., Lypha cristiverpa n. sp., Micronychia woodi n. sp., Nigrilypha gnoma n. sp., Ostracophyto flavicaudalis n. sp.
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