| Asilomorpha | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Lepidophora sp. (Bombyliidae) on Bidens laevis | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Diptera |
| Suborder: | Brachycera |
| Infraorder: | Asilomorpha |
| Superfamilies | |
The Brachyceran infraorder Asilomorpha is a large and diverse group of flies, containing the bulk of the nonmuscoid Brachycera. [1] [2] The larvae of asilomorphs are extremely diverse in habits, as well.
In most modern classifications, the infraorder Asilomorpha is not recognized, as it is paraphyletic; the Empidoidea are the sister taxon to the Muscomorpha (used here in the same sense as the traditional Cyclorrhapha, not following the Tree of Life Web Project system in this one instance). However, these modern classifications are not Linnaean, and - while relatively easy to visualize on a phylogenetic tree diagram - do not lend themselves to any classification that uses Linnaean ranks (see discussion for details). Also, some classifications place the Nemestrinoidea within the Tabanomorpha, though this is not widely accepted.
Linnaean taxonomy can mean either of two related concepts:
In biology, taxonomy is the scientific study of naming, defining (circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa and these groups are given a taxonomic rank; groups of a given rank can be aggregated to form a more inclusive group of higher rank, thus creating a taxonomic hierarchy. The principal ranks in modern use are domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. The Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus is regarded as the founder of the current system of taxonomy, as he developed a ranked system known as Linnaean taxonomy for categorizing organisms and binomial nomenclature for naming organisms.
The Heteroptera are a group of about 40,000 species of insects in the order Hemiptera. They are sometimes called "true bugs", though that name more commonly refers to the Hemiptera as a whole. "Typical bugs" might be used as a more unequivocal alternative, since the heteropterans are most consistently and universally termed "bugs" among the Hemiptera. "Heteroptera" is Greek for "different wings": most species have forewings with both membranous and hardened portions ; members of the primitive sub-group Enicocephalomorpha have completely membranous wings.
The Mygalomorphae, or mygalomorphs, are an infraorder of spiders, and comprise one of three major groups of living spiders with over 3000 species, found on all continents except Antarctica. Many members are known as trapdoor spiders due to their creation of trapdoors over their burrows. Other prominent groups include Australian funnel web spiders and tarantulas, with the latter accounting for around one third of all mygalomorphs.
The Decapoda or decapods are an order of crustaceans within the class Malacostraca, including many familiar groups, including crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, and prawns. Most decapods are scavengers. The order is estimated to contain nearly 15,000 extant species in around 2,700 genera, with around 3,300 fossil species. Nearly half of these species are crabs, with the shrimp and Anomura including hermit crabs, porcelain crabs, squat lobsters making up the bulk of the remainder. The earliest fossils of the group date to the Devonian.
The Brachycera are a suborder of the order Diptera. It is a major suborder consisting of around 120 families. Their most distinguishing characteristic is reduced antenna segmentation.
Orthorrhapha is a circumscriptional name which historically was used in entomology for an infraorder of Brachycera, one of the two suborders into which the order Diptera, the flies, are divided. As the group was paraphyletic, it has not been used in classifications in the last decade, and is effectively obsolete. However, many catalogs, checklists, and older works still contain the name. The taxa that used to be in the Orthorrhapha now comprise all of the infraorders in Brachycera excluding the Muscomorpha.
Evolutionary taxonomy, evolutionary systematics or Darwinian classification is a branch of biological classification that seeks to classify organisms using a combination of phylogenetic relationship, progenitor-descendant relationship, and degree of evolutionary change. This type of taxonomy may consider whole taxa rather than single species, so that groups of species can be inferred as giving rise to new groups. The concept found its most well-known form in the modern evolutionary synthesis of the early 1940s.
Dinosaur classification began in 1842 when Sir Richard Owen placed Iguanodon, Megalosaurus, and Hylaeosaurus in "a distinct tribe or suborder of Saurian Reptiles, for which I would propose the name of Dinosauria." In 1887 and 1888 Harry Seeley divided dinosaurs into the two orders Saurischia and Ornithischia, based on their hip structure. These divisions have proved remarkably enduring, even through several seismic changes in the taxonomy of dinosaurs.
A folk taxonomy is a vernacular naming system, as distinct from scientific taxonomy. Folk biological classification is the way people traditionally describe and organize the world around them, typically making generous use of form taxa such as "shrubs", "bugs", "ducks", "fish", "algae", "vegetables", or of economic criteria such as "game animals", "pack animals", "weeds" and other like terms.
The Batrachomorpha are a clade containing recent and extinct amphibians that are more closely related to modern amphibians than they are to mammals and reptiles. According to many analyses they include the extinct Temnospondyli; some show that they include the Lepospondyli instead. The name traditionally indicated a more limited group.
The Gerromorpha comprise an infraorder of insects in the "true bug" order Hemiptera. These "typical" bugs are commonly called semiaquatic bugs or shore-inhabiting bugs. The Ochteroidea (infraorder Nepomorpha are also found in shore habitat, while the Gerromorpha are actually most often encountered running around on the water surface, being kept from sinking by surface tension and their water-repellent legs. Well-known members of the Gerromorpha are the namesake Gerridae.
The Pentatomomorpha comprise an infraorder of insects in the true bug order Hemiptera. It unites such animals as the stink bugs (Pentatomidae), flat bugs (Aradidae), seed bugs, etc. They are closely related to the Cimicomorpha.
Vertebrate Palaeontology is a basic textbook on vertebrate paleontology by Michael J. Benton, published by Blackwell's. It has so far appeared in four editions, published in 1990, 1997, 2005, and 2015. It is designed for paleontology graduate courses in biology and geology as well as for the interested layman.
Procolophonomorpha is an order or clade containing most parareptiles. Many papers have applied various definitions to the name, though most of these definitions have since been considered synonymous with modern parareptile clades such as Ankyramorpha and Procolophonia. The current definition of Procolophonomorpha, as defined by Modesto, Scott, & Reisz (2009), is that of as a stem-based group containing Procolophon and all taxa more closely related to it than to Milleretta. It constitutes a diverse assemblage that includes a number of lizard-like forms, as well as more diverse types such as the pareiasaurs. Lee 1995, 1996, 1997 argues that turtles evolved from pareiasaurs, but this view is no longer considered likely. Rieppel and deBraga 1996 and deBraga and Rieppel, 1997 argue that turtles evolved from sauropterygians, and there is both molecular and fossil (Pappochelys) evidence for the origin of turtles among diapsid reptiles.
The Brachyceran infraorder Tabanomorpha is a small group that consists primarily of two large families, the Tabanidae and Rhagionidae, and an assortment of very small affiliated families, most of which have been included within the Rhagionidae.
The Brachyceran infraorder Muscomorpha is a large and diverse group of flies, containing the bulk of the Brachycera and most of the known flies. It includes a number of the most familiar flies, such as the housefly, the fruit fly, and the blow fly. The antennae are short, usually three-segmented, with a dorsal arista. Their bodies are often highly setose, and the pattern of setae is often taxonomically important.
Rhagionidae or snipe flies are a small family of flies. They get their name from the similarity of their often prominent proboscis that looks like the beak of a snipe.
In biology, taxonomic rank is the relative level of a group of organisms in an ancestral or hereditary hierarchy. A common system of biological classification (taxonomy) consists of species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, and domain. While older approaches to taxonomic classification were phenomenological, forming groups on the basis of similarities in appearance, organic structure and behaviour, methods based on genetic analysis have opened the road to cladistics.
The Trombidiformes are a large, diverse order of mites.
Media related to Asilomorpha at Wikimedia Commons 
Data related to Asilomorpha at Wikispecies
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