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| Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Diptera |
Adult insects. Very small to small; winged. Antennae 3 segmented (third segment short, apically rounded); ‘modified’; aristate; the arista dorsal (plumose above, but with some short hairs below). The second antennal segment not grooved. Ptilinal suture clearly defined. Post-vertical orbital bristles present; convergent (‘strong and crossed’, according to Unwin). Mouthparts functional. The maxillary palps 1 segmented; porrect. Vibrissae present. Thorax without a continuous dorsal suture; without well defined posterior calli. Wing venation incomplete, in the sense of lacking one or more of the cells. Wings without a discal cell; without a closed anal cell. The costa with two breaks (near the humeral cross vein, and near the end of vein 1). Sub-costa absent or only dubiously identifiable (vestigial). Wing vein 6 absent. Wings with the lower calypter much reduced or absent. Tibiae without a dorsal pre-apical bristle. Hind tibiae without strong bristles in the basal 4/5.
Larvae and pupae. The larvae acephalic. The pupae enclosed within a puparium.
Comments. Very small to small, shining black flies.
Classification. Suborder Brachycera; Division Muscomorpha Schizophora Acalyptratae; Superfamily Ephydroidea.
British representation. 5 species in Britain. Genera 1; Camilla.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, 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. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Diptera. Version: 14th April 2022. delta-intkey.com’.