The following is a list of the larger Brachycera recorded in Britain, this includes the soldierflies and their allies. [1]
Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera, in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 described species, is the largest of all orders, constituting almost 40% of described insects and 25% of all known animal species; new species are discovered frequently, with estimates suggesting that there are between 0.9 and 2.1 million total species. However, the number of beetle species is challenged by the number of species in dipterans (flies) and hymenopterans (wasps).
Horse flies and deer flies are true flies in the family Tabanidae in the insect order Diptera. The adults are often large and agile in flight. Only female horseflies bite land vertebrates, including humans, to obtain blood. They prefer to fly in sunlight, avoiding dark and shady areas, and are inactive at night. They are found all over the world except for some islands and the polar regions. Both horse-flies and botflies (Oestridae) are sometimes referred to as gadflies.
Superfamily Tabanoidea are insects in the order Diptera.
Haematopota is a genus of flies in the horse-fly family, Tabanidae. Among the horse-flies, they are most commonly known as clegs. Many species have colorful, sinuously patterned eyes in life, a character that fades after death. The wings are typically patterned with spots of grey. The genus is named from the Ancient Greek for blood-drinker: αἷμα, haîma, blood; πότης, pótës, drinker. Some species are known to be vectors of livestock diseases.
A wide variety of animals have names describing them as black-legged.
In the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, Carl Linnaeus classified the arthropods, including insects, arachnids and crustaceans, among his class "Insecta". Insects with simply two wings were brought together under the name Diptera.
Haematopota pluvialis, the common horse fly or notch-horned cleg fly, or simply cleg in Scotland and northern parts of Ireland, is a species belonging to the family Tabanidae subfamily Tabaninae.
Beris morrisii, the yellow-legged black legionnaire, is a European species of soldier fly.
Chrysops caecutiens, common name splayed deer fly, is a species of horse fly belonging to the family Tabanidae. It is also known by the colloquial name Scotch cleg.