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| Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Diptera |
Kelp-flies.
Adult insects. Small to medium-sized; slender-bodied to robustly-built. The face in lateral view deeply excavated between the antennae and the edge of the mouth. Antennae 2 segmented, or 3 segmented; ‘modified’; aristate; the arista dorsal (not plumose). The second antennal segment not grooved. Ptilinal suture clearly defined. Eyes rounded, well separated. Post-vertical orbital bristles present; convergent (mostly), or parallel to divergent. Mouthparts functional. The maxillary palps 1 segmented; porrect. Thorax without a continuous dorsal suture; without well defined posterior calli. Wing venation complete, in the sense of exhibiting 1st and 2nd basal, anal and discal cells. Wings with a discal cell; with a closed anal cell. The anal cell short. The costa unbroken. Sub-costa apparent; reaching the costa independently of vein 1. The leading edge veins not noticeably stronger than the rest. Wings without a ‘vena spuria’. Wing vein 6 present; reaching the wing margin (but faint). Wings with the lower calypter much reduced or absent. Hind tibiae with strong bristles in the basal 4/5.
Larvae and pupae. The larvae aquatic; saprophagous (in decaying seaweed, regularly inundated by the tide); acephalic. The pupae enclosed within a puparium.
Comments. Small to medium sized, very bristly or hairy, rather flattened flies of the seashore.
Classification. Suborder Brachycera; Division Muscomorpha Schizophora Acalyptratae; Superfamily Scyomyzoidea.
British representation. 2 species in Britain. Genera 1; Coelopa.
Illustrations. • Fucomyia frigida (from Walker). 4, Fucomyia frigida, with details of head from side (4a) and antenna (4b). From Walker (1853, Plate 13), with 1cm scale added.
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’.
