A crane fly is any member of the dipteran superfamily Tipuloidea, which contains the living families Cylindrotomidae, Limoniidae, Pediciidae and Tipulidae, as well as several extinct families. "Winter crane flies", members of the family Trichoceridae, are sufficiently different from the typical crane flies of Tipuloidea to be excluded from the superfamily Tipuloidea, and are placed as their sister group within Tipulomorpha.
The Bombyliidae are a family of flies, commonly known as bee flies. Adults generally feed on nectar and pollen, some being important pollinators. Larvae are mostly parasitoids of other insects.
The Asiloidea comprise a very large superfamily insects in the order Diptera, the true flies. It has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring worldwide. It includes the family Bombyliidae, the bee flies, which are parasitoids, and the Asilidae, the robber flies, which are predators of other insects.
The Phoridae are a family of small, hump-backed flies resembling fruit flies. Phorid flies can often be identified by their escape habit of running rapidly across a surface rather than taking to the wing. This behaviour is a source of one of their alternate names, scuttle fly. Another vernacular name, coffin fly, refers to Conicera tibialis. About 4,000 species are known in 230 genera. The most well-known species is cosmopolitan Megaselia scalaris. At 0.4 mm in length, the world's smallest fly is the phorid Euryplatea nanaknihali.
Muscidae are a family of flies found in the superfamily Muscoidea.
The Lonchopteridae are a family of small (2–5 mm), slender, yellow to brownish-black Diptera, occurring all over the world. Their common name refers to their pointed wings, which have a distinct venation. Many are parthenogenic; males are very rare, however, at least in North American species, and have a somewhat different venation than do the females.
The Acroceridae are a small family of odd-looking flies. They have a hump-backed appearance with a strikingly small head, generally with a long proboscis for accessing nectar. They are rare and not widely known. The most frequently applied common names are small-headed flies or hunch-back flies. Many are bee or wasp mimics. Because they are parasitoids of spiders, they also are sometimes known as spider flies.
The Therevidae are a family of flies of the superfamily Asiloidea commonly known as stiletto flies. The family contains about 1,600 described species worldwide, most diverse in arid and semiarid regions with sandy soils. The larvae are predators of insect larvae in soil.
The soldier flies are a family of flies. The family contains over 2,700 species in over 380 extant genera worldwide. Larvae are found in a wide array of locations, mostly in wetlands, damp places in soil, sod, under bark, in animal excrement, and in decaying organic matter. Adults are found near larval habitats. They are diverse in size and shape, though they commonly are partly or wholly metallic green, or somewhat wasplike mimics, marked with black and yellow or green and sometimes metallic. They are often rather inactive flies which typically rest with their wings placed one above the other over the abdomen.
The Psilidae are family of flies. Commonly called the rust flies, at least 38 species are in four genera. The carrot fly is a member of this group. They are found mainly in the Holarctic.
The Agromyzidae are a family commonly referred to as the leaf-miner flies, for the feeding habits of their larvae, most of which are leaf miners on various plants.
Empididae is a family of flies with over 3,000 described species occurring worldwide in all the biogeographic realms but the majority are found in the Holarctic. They are mainly predatory flies like most of their relatives in the Empidoidea, and exhibit a wide range of forms but are generally small to medium-sized, non-metallic and rather bristly.
The Lonchaeidae are a family of acalyptrate flies commonly known as lance flies. About 500 described species are placed into 9 genera. These are generally small but robustly built flies with blue-black or metallic bodies. They are found, mainly in wooded areas, throughout the world with the exception of polar regions and New Zealand.
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.
Diastatidae are a family of flies in the order Diptera. They are encountered primarily in the Holarctic Region, but several species are found in the Oriental, Neotropical and Australasian regions. Members of the family number over 20 described species in three genera. There is an additional fossil genus.
Platypezidae is a family of true flies of the superfamily Platypezoidea. The more than 250 species are found worldwide primarily in woodland habitats. A common name is flat-footed flies, but this is also used for the closely related Opetiidae which were formerly included in the Platypezidae.
Heterostylum is a genus of flies belonging to the family Bombyliidae (bee-flies). There are 14 described species, distributed throughout the Americas. These are robust and very hairy flies with a body length of 10–15 mm. They can be distinguished from similar genera by an indentation in the hind margin of the eye and unique wing venation.
Apsilocephalidae is a family of flies in the superfamily Asiloidea. It was historically treated as a subfamily within Therevidae, but placed in a separate family in 1991, and subsequently recognized as more distantly related. The family contains three extant genera and at least five extinct genera described from the fossil record.
Cerioidini is a widespread tribe of around 222 species of hoverfly. Cerioidini are mistaken for wasps for which they are effective mimic. Cerioidini have antennae with a terminal style and have somewhat elongate and basally constricted abdomens, only slightly in Ceriana, but pronounced in most Sphiximorpha; and Polybiomyia, and extremely in Monoceromyia. Larvae live mostly within tree sap associated with tree wounds or putrefying pockets of water in tree cavities.
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.
