Sawflies are the insects of the suborder Symphyta within the order Hymenoptera, alongside ants, bees, and wasps. The common name comes from the saw-like appearance of the ovipositor, which the females use to cut into the plants where they lay their eggs. The name is associated especially with the Tenthredinoidea, by far the largest superfamily in the suborder, with about 7,000 known species; in the entire suborder, there are 8,000 described species in more than 800 genera. Symphyta is paraphyletic, consisting of several basal groups within the order Hymenoptera, each one rooted inside the previous group, ending with the Apocrita which are not sawflies.
The insect order Neuroptera, or net-winged insects, includes the lacewings, mantidflies, antlions, and their relatives. The order consists of some 6,000 species. Neuroptera is grouped together with the Megaloptera and Raphidioptera (snakeflies) in the unranked taxon Neuropterida.
The Tipulomorpha are an infraorder of Nematocera, containing the crane flies, a very large group, and allied families.
The Culicomorpha are an infraorder of Nematocera, including mosquitoes, black flies, and several extant and extinct families of insects. They originated 176 million years ago, in the Triassic period. There are phylogenetic patterns that are used to interpret bionomic features such as differences in the nature of blood-feeding by adult females, daytime or nighttime feeding by adult females, and occurrence of immature stages in aquatic habitats.
The Nematocera are a suborder of elongated flies with thin, segmented antennae and mostly aquatic larvae. This group is paraphyletic and contains all flies but species from suborder Brachycera, which includes more commonly known species such as the housefly or the common fruit fly. Families in Nematocera include mosquitoes, crane flies, gnats, black flies, and multiple families commonly known as midges. The Nematocera typically have fairly long, fine, finely-jointed antennae. In many species, such as most mosquitoes, the female antennae are more or less threadlike, but the males have spectacularly plumose antennae.
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.
Alexandr Pavlovich Rasnitsyn is a Russian entomologist, expert in palaeoentomology, and Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation (2001). His scientific interests are centered on the palaeontology, phylogeny, and taxonomy of hymenopteran insects and insects in general. He has also studied broader biological problems such as evolutionary theory, the principles of phylogenetics, taxonomy, nomenclature, and palaeoecology. He has published over 300 articles and books in several languages. In August 2008 he was awarded the Distinguished Research Medal of the International Society of Hymenopterists.
The Nematoceran family Axymyiidae is the sole member of the infraorder Axymyiomorpha, though it is often included within the infraorder Bibionomorpha in older classifications. It is known from only nine species in four genera, plus eight fossil species.
Bibionidae is a family of flies (Diptera) containing approximately 650–700 species worldwide. Adults are nectar feeders and emerge in numbers in spring. Because of the likelihood of adults flies being found in copula, they have earned colloquial names such as "love bugs" or "honeymoon flies".
Sciaroidea is a superfamily in the infraorder Bibionomorpha. There are about 16 families and more than 15,000 described species in Sciaroidea. Most of its constituent families are various gnats.
Bolitophila is the sole living genus in the Bolitophilidae, a family of Diptera in the superfamily Sciaroidea, with around 40 Palaearctic and about 20 Nearctic species, and three species from the Oriental region (Taiwan). They are small (6–9 mm).
Palaeontinoidea is an extinct superfamily of cicadomorph hemipteran insects. This superfamily contains three families.
C. elegans most commonly refers to the model round worm Caenorhabditis elegans. It may also refer to any of the species below. They are listed, first in taxonomic order and, second, alphabetically.
A gnat is any of many species of tiny flying insects in the dipterid suborder Nematocera, especially those in the families Mycetophilidae, Anisopodidae and Sciaridae. They can be both biting and non-biting. Most often they fly in large numbers, called clouds. "Gnat" is a loose descriptive category rather than a phylogenetic or other technical term, so there is no scientific consensus on what constitutes a gnat. Some entomologists consider only non-biting flies to be gnats. Certain universities and institutes also distinguish eye gnats: the Smithsonian Institution describes them as "non-biting flies, no bigger than a few grains of salt, ... attracted to fluids secreted by your eyes".
Antefungivoridae is an extinct family of fungus gnats and gall midges in the order Diptera. There are about 9 genera and more than 40 described species in Antefungivoridae.
Taldycupedidae is an extinct family of beetles primarily known from the Permian period.
