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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.
The Blephariceromorpha are an infraorder of nematoceran flies, including three families associated with fast-flowing, high-mountain streams, where the larvae can be found.
Theodor Becker was a Danish-born German civil engineer and entomologist primarily known for studies on the taxonomy of flies.
The Nymphomyiidae are a family of tiny (2 mm) slender, delicate flies (Diptera). Larvae are found among aquatic mosses in small, rapid streams in northern regions of the world, including northeastern North America, Japan, the Himalayas, and eastern Russia. Around a dozen extant species are known, with two fossil species found in amber, extending back to the Mid Cretaceous. Under an alternative classification, they are considered the only living representatives of a separate, suborder called Archidiptera which includes several Triassic fossil members. The family has characteristics associated with the Nematocera as well as the Brachycera. The antennae are shortened as in the Brachycera and these flies are long, having a snout with vestigeal mouthparts, non-differentiated abdominal segments with large cerci. The wings are narrow and hair-fringed and have very weak venation. They are known to form cloud-like swarms in summer and the short-lived non-feeding adults have wings that fracture at the base shortly after mating.
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 family Vermileonidae is a small family of uncertain affinities and unusual biology. It includes fewer than 80 described species, most of them rare and with restricted distribution, in 10 genera. Historically the vermileonids had been regarded as belonging to the family Rhagionidae, possibly in a subfamily Vermileoninae. Their biology and morphology are so markedly distinct from the main Rhagionidae sensu stricto however, that the placement as a separate family has been widely accepted.
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.
Dolichopus is a large cosmopolitan genus of flies in the family Dolichopodidae. Adults are small flies, typically less than 8 mm in length. Nearly all species are metallic greenish-blue to greenish-bronze. It is the largest genus of Dolichopodidae with more than 600 species worldwide.
Dolichopus urbanus is a European species of flies in family Dolichopodidae.
Dolichopus ungulatus is a European species of fly in the family Dolichopodidae.
Sciapus is a genus of long-legged flies in the family Dolichopodidae. There are about 82 described species in Sciapus.
Dipteran morphology differs in some significant ways from the broader morphology of insects. The Diptera is a very large and diverse order of mostly small to medium-sized insects. They have prominent compound eyes on a mobile head, and one pair of functional, membraneous wings, which are attached to a complex mesothorax. The second pair of wings, on the metathorax, are reduced to halteres. The order's fundamental peculiarity is its remarkable specialization in terms of wing shape and the morpho-anatomical adaptation of the thorax – features which lend particular agility to its flying forms. The filiform, stylate or aristate antennae correlate with the Nematocera, Brachycera and Cyclorrhapha taxa respectively. It displays substantial morphological uniformity in lower taxa, especially at the level of genus or species. The configuration of integumental bristles is of fundamental importance in their taxonomy, as is wing venation. It displays a complete metamorphosis, or holometabolous development. The larvae are legless, and have head capsules with mandibulate mouthparts in the Nematocera. The larvae of "higher flies" (Brachycera) are however headless and wormlike, and display only three instars. Pupae are obtect in the Nematocera, or coarcate in Brachycera.
Panopinae is a subfamily of small-headed flies (Acroceridae). Their larvae are endoparasites of spiders in the infraorder Mygalomorphae.
Enliniinae is a subfamily of flies in the family Dolichopodidae.
Hydrelliinae is a subfamily of shore flies in the family Ephydridae.
Argyra auricollis is a species of fly in the family Dolichopodidae. It is found in the Palearctic.
Argyra ilonae is a species of fly in the family Dolichopodidae. It is found in the Palearctic.
Neurigona quadrifasciata is a species of long-legged fly in the family Dolichopodidae.
Rhagionemestriidae is an extinct family of brachyceran flies known from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. It was first named as a subfamily of the Nemestrinidae by Ussatchov (1968), and was raised to full family status by Nagatomi and Yang (1998). They are considered to be closely related to the family Acroceridae. Similar to Acroceridae, members of the family possess a large hemispherical head, with eyes covering nearly all of the area.
References
- Cedric Gillott, 1980 Entomology Plenum Press, New York ISBN 0306405148
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