| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Diptera |
~Mycetophilidae
Fungus-gnats.
Adult insects. Slender-bodied; winged (usually), or wingless (e.g., Epidapus); stilt-legged. Antennae 8–16 segmented; long and threadlike; ‘simple’ (thread-like); not aristate. Ocelli present; 3. Eyes asymmetric, nearly or quite connected above the antennae (curving to meet one another). The maxillary palps 3 segmented; drooping. Vibrissae absent. Wing veins reaching the margin 3–6 (? - fewer than 9, with vein 2 absent). Wings without a discal cell; without a sub-apical cell; without a closed anal cell. The costa not extending around the entire wing. Sub-costa apparent; terminating blind. The leading edge veins markedly stronger than the rest. Media and cubitus veins not connected by a cross-vein or a fusion. Wings with the lower calypter much reduced or absent. Tibiae apically spurred. Feet without a triple pad. Abdomen constricted basally.
Larvae and pupae. The larvae terrestrial; saprophagous, or mycophagous (commonly gregarious, in rotting vegetable matter or highly organic soils); eucephalic (the head capsule black). The pupae without a puparium.
Comments. Delicate flies, head often overhung by the humped thorax.
Classification. Suborder Nematocera; Division Bibionomorpha; Superfamily Sciaroidea.
British representation. 153 species in Britain. Genera 19; Bradysia, Bradysiopsis, Camptochaeta, Corynoptera, Cratyna, Ctenosciara, Epidapus, Leptosciarella, Lycoriella, Phytosciara, Pnyxia, Pseudolycoriella, Scatopsciara, Schwenckfeldina, Sciara, Scythropochroa, Trichosia, Xylosciara, Zygoneura.
Illustrations. • Epidapus, Sciara and Zygoneura (from Walker). 5, Sciara hemerobioides, with details of head from front (5a), and wing (5b). 6, Epidapus atomarius, viewed from above and (6a) from the side .Wings and halteres are lacking in this genus. 7, Zygoneura sciarina, male, with detail of a middle joint of the antenna (7a); 7b, antenna of female, and 7c, a middle joint of the latter. From Walker (1876, Plates XXII and XXX), with 1mm and 2mm scales 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’.
