| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Diptera |
Unless indicated otherwise, the following attributes are implicit throughout the descriptions, except where the characters concerned are inapplicable.
Life style non-parasitic.
Adult insects. Winged; not stilt-legged. The legs not readily shed. The face in lateral view not deeply excavated between the antennae and the edge of the mouth. Antennae with a non-annulated terminal segment. The arista not forked at the tip. The second antennal segment not grooved. The second antennal segment when viewed from the outside normal, with no extension over the third. Ptilinal suture absent or weakly defined. Eyes rounded, well separated. Mouthparts functional. Thorax without a continuous dorsal suture. The dorsal suture neither V-shaped nor U-shaped. The costa unbroken; not extending around the entire wing. Wings without a sharp bend in vein 4; without a ‘vena spuria’; unpatterned. Feet without a triple pad. The hind tarsi normal.
Larvae and pupae. The larvae not gall-forming.
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’.