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| Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Diptera |
Clythiidae
Flat-footed Flies.
Adult insects. Very small to small. Antennae 3 segmented (the third segment elongate and often pyriform); ‘modified’; with a non-annulated terminal segment; aristate; the arista apical. Ptilinal suture absent or weakly defined. Eyes asymmetric, nearly or quite connected above the antennae (males), or rounded, well separated. The maxillary palps 1 segmented; porrect. Vibrissae absent. Wings with a discal cell, or without a discal cell; without a sub-apical cell; with a closed anal cell. The anal cell short. The costal vein markedly thickened. Sub-costa apparent; reaching the costa independently of vein 1. The leading edge veins not noticeably stronger than the rest. Wing vein 3 not forked. Feet without a triple pad. The hind tarsi having the basal three or four segments flattened and dilated.
Larvae and pupae. The larvae terrestrial; mycophagous (living in fungi); acephalic. The pupae enclosed within a puparium.
Comments. Small, thinly-haired flies, usually having the basal three or four segments of the hind tarsi dilated. Often dancing in the air in companies.
Classification. Suborder Brachycera; Division Muscomorpha Aschiza; Superfamily Platypezoidea.
British representation. 30 species in Britain. Genera 10; Agathomyia, Bolopus, Callomyia, Lindneromyia, Microsania, Paraplatypeza, Platypeza, Polyporivora, Protoclythia, Seri.
Illustrations. • Callomyia and Polyporivora (from Walker). 2, Polyporivora picta. 2a, head of male; 2b, face of female, showing mouth and two palps; 2c, antenna; 2d, middle tarsus, 2e, hind tarsus; 2f, last joint of tarsus; 2g, mouth. 3, Callomyia elegans; 3a, face of female; 3b, antenna; 3c, hind tarsus. From Walker (1851, Plate VIII), with 2mm 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’.
