British Insects: the Families of Diptera
| British Insects: the Families of Diptera | |
Bee-louse.
Life style parasitic (on bees).
Adult insects. Very small (1–1.5 mm long); robustly-built; wingless. Antennae 2–6 segmented; ‘modified’. The second antennal segment not grooved. Ptilinal suture clearly defined. Lower orbital bristles absent. Post-vertical orbital bristles absent. Mouthparts functional. The maxillary palps 1 segmented; porrect. Thorax without a continuous dorsal suture; without well defined posterior calli. Hind tibiae without strong bristles in the basal 4/5 (with short bristles). Parasitic (on bees).
Larvae and pupae. Larvae terrestrial; parasitic (living in the cells of honey bees); acephalic. Pupa enclosed within a puparium.
Comments. Mite-like, wide-headed flies, the eyes minute, mesonotum short and resembling the abdominal tergites, so that the thorax is not clearly differentiated from the rounded abdomen; the tarsi distally distended. Scutellum absent.
Classification. Suborder Brachycera; Division Muscomorpha Schizophora Acalyptratae; Superfamily Carnoidea.
British representation: Genera 1; 2 species.
Illustrations: • Braula coeca (Carpenter 1920).
To view the illustrations with detailed captions, go to the interactive key. This also offers full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. British insects: the families of Diptera. Version: 9th April 2007. http://delta-intkey.com’.
