British Insects: the Families of Diptera
British Insects: the Families of Diptera |
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Adult insects. Small; robustly-built. Antennae 3 segmented (the third segment long); ‘modified’. Antennae aristate (the arista not plumose); the bristle dorsal. The second antennal segment not grooved. Ptilinal suture clearly defined. Post-vertical orbital bristles present; divergent. Mouthparts functional (proboscis short). The maxillary palps 1 segmented; porrect. Vibrissae present, or absent. Thorax without a continuous dorsal suture; without well defined posterior calli. Wings with a discal cell; without a sub-apical cell; with a closed anal cell. The anal cell short. The costa with one break (at the end of the sub-costa). Sub-costa apparent; reaching the costa independently of vein 1. The leading edge veins not noticeably stronger than the rest. Vein 6 present; falling short of the wing margin. Wings with the lower calypter much reduced or absent; unpatterned. Tibiae with a dorsal pre-apical bristle (rarely), or without a dorsal pre-apical bristle. Hind tibiae without strong bristles in the basal 4/5.
Larvae and pupae. Larvae terrestrial; saprophagous, or coprophagous, or mycophagous, or predatory; acephalic. Pupa enclosed within a puparium.
Comments. Small, shining metallic bluish- or greenish-black, rather hairy flies. Ovipositor with non-retractile sheath.
Classification. Suborder Brachycera; Division Muscomorpha Schizophora Acalyptratae; Superfamily Tephritoidea.
British representation: Genera 5; 37 species.
Illustrations: • Lonchaea chorea (from Walker).
To view the illustrations with detailed captions, go to the interactive key. This also offers full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. British insects: the families of Diptera. Version: 9th June 2008. http://delta-intkey.com’.
