| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Diptera |
~Muscidae
Lesser House-flies.
Life style non-parasitic.
Adult insects. Small to medium-sized; robustly-built. Antennae 2–6 segmented; ‘modified’. The second antennal segment distinctly grooved above. Ptilinal suture clearly defined. Mouthparts functional. The maxillary palps 1 segmented; porrect. Thorax with the dorsal suture continuous across the middle; with well defined posterior calli. Hypopleural bristles absent. Wings with a discal cell; without a sub-apical cell; with a closed anal cell. The anal cell short. Sub-costa apparent; reaching the costa independently of vein 1. The leading edge veins not noticeably stronger than the rest. Wings without a sharp bend in vein 4. Wing vein 6 present; falling short of the wing margin (very short). Wing vein 7 present; falling short of the wing margin (sharply curved). Wings with a well developed lower calypter. Hind tibiae with strong bristles in the basal 4/5.
Larvae and pupae. The larvae aquatic to terrestrial (often in semi-liquid media); saprophagous, or coprophagous, or consuming stored produce, or mycophagous (generally associated with decaying matter or excrement); acephalic. The pupae enclosed within a puparium.
Comments. Frons never with crossed bristles.
Classification. Suborder Brachycera; Division Muscomorpha Schizophora Calyptratae; Superfamily Muscoidea.
British representation. 60 species in Britain. Genera 2; Fannia, Piezura.
Illustrations. • Fannia (Hammond). Fannia lustrator, female (left), Fannia canicularis, male (right), and mid-leg tibia of Fannia armata. From Colyer and Hammond (1951), with approximate insect lengths 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’.
