British Insects: the Families of Diptera
British Insects: the Families of Diptera |
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Midges, Biting Midges, Sand-flies.
Parasitic (the adults often blood-sucking), or non-parasitic.
Adult insects. Very small; not stilt-legged. Antennae 8–16 segmented; ‘simple’ (hairy, and plumed in males). Antennae not aristate. Ocelli absent. Eyes not meeting. Mouthparts functional; short, adapted for piercing (the females being ‘biting midges’), or non-piercing (males). Mandibles present (in both males and females). Mandibles not in the form of long, slender, piercing stylets. The maxillary palps 3–5 segmented; drooping. Vibrissae absent. Thorax without a continuous dorsal suture (i.e., without a V-shaped suture). Wing veins reaching the margin 6–8. Wings without a discal cell; without a sub-apical cell; without a closed anal cell. The costa not extending around the entire wing. Sub-costa apparent; terminating blind (but long). The leading edge veins markedly stronger than the rest. Vein 4 forked distally. Wings with the lower calypter much reduced or absent. Commonly parasitic (some sucking mammalian blood, more taking juices from other adult insects or larvae), or neither parasitic nor predatory.
Larvae and pupae. Larvae aquatic, or terrestrial; phytophagous (e.g., aquatic forms feeding on algae, terrestrial forms on exudates from wounded trees), or saprophagous; eucephalic. Pupa without a puparium.
Comments. Minute flies, sometimes with broad wings. Wings folded one above the other, and held over the body, when at rest. Fore-legs not elongated, by contrast with Chironomidae.
Classification. Suborder Nematocera; Division Culicomorpha; Superfamily Chironomoidea.
British representation. 161 species in Britain. Genera 21; Allohelea, Alluaudomyia, Atrichopogon, Bezzia, Brachypogon, Ceratopogon, Clinohelea, Culicoides, Dasyhelea, Forcipomyia, Homobezzia, Kolenohelea, Mallochohelea, Neurohelea, Palpomyia, Phaenobezzia, Probezzia, Schizohelea, Serromyia, Sphaeromyas, Stilobezzia.
Illustrations. • Allohelea, Palpomyia, Serromyia, Sphaeromyias (from Walker). • Sphaeromias fasciatus (Original generic description. White-bordered Sphaeromias: B. Ent. 285). • Sphaeromias fasciatus (detail and dissections: B. Ent. 285). • Sphaeromias fasciatus (B. Ent. 285, legend+text). • Sphaeromias fasciatus (B. Ent. 285, text cont.). • Forcipomyia palustris (?):as Ceratopogon palustris, Stephens 1846.
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: 28th August 2009. http://delta-intkey.com’.
