Phoridae

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Phoridae
A phorid fly, showing the humped back that is characteristic of the family
A phorid fly, showing the humped back that is characteristic of the family
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Diptera
Suborder: Brachycera
Infraorder: Muscomorpha
Superfamily: Platypezoidea
Family: Phoridae
Subfamilies
  • Aenigmatiinae
  • Metopininae
  • Phorinae
  • Sciadocerinae

Phoridae is 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. There are approximately 3000 species in 230 genera.

Contents

[edit] Appearance

Phorid flies are about 1⁄64–1⁄4 in (½–6 mm) in length. When viewed from the side, there is a pronounced hump to the thorax.[1] The colour ranges from black or brown to yellowish.They have a characteristic wing venation.

Phora wing venation.
Phora wing venation.

[edit] Environment

Phorid flies are found worldwide, though the greatest variety of species is to be found in the tropics. They are frequently found around flowers and moist decaying matter, although they can be found throughout the house. Several species have the common name of the coffin fly, because they breed in human corpses with such tenacity that they can even continue their life cycle within buried coffins. For this reason they are important in forensic entomology. More generally, the larvae breed in a numerous variety of locations, such as dung, fungi, decaying plant matter or drain pipes.

Most commonly they feed on decaying organic matter. Because they frequent unsanitary places they may transport various disease-causing organisms to food material.

[edit] Life cycle

Phorid flies develop from an egg, and via larval, and pupal stages before emerging as an adult. The female lays between 1 to 100 tiny eggs at a time in or on the larval food. She can lay up to 750 eggs in her lifetime. The time it takes from egg to adult vary on the species, but the average is about 25 days.

The larvae emerge in 24 hours and feed for a period of between 8 and 16 days, before crawling to a drier spot to pupate. The phorid fly's egg-to-adult life cycle can be as short as 14 days but may take up to 37 days.

[edit] Control of fire ants

Phorid flies also represent a new and hopeful means by which to control fire ant populations in the southern United States, which was accidentally introduced in the 1930s. The genus Pseudacteon, or ant-decapitating fly, of which 110 species have been documented, is a parasite of the ant in South America. Members of Pseudacteon reproduce by laying eggs in the thorax of the ant. The first instar larvae migrates to the head. The larvae develop by feeding on the hemolymph,muscle tissue,and nervous tissue in the head. After about two weeks, they cause the ant's head to fall off by releasing an enzyme that dissolves the membrane attaching the ant's head to its body. The fly pupates in the detached head capsule, requiring a further two weeks before emerging. The phorid flies have been widely introduced throughout the U. S. Southeast, starting with Travis, Brazos, and Dallas counties in Texas, as well as Mobile, Alabama, where the ants first entered North America.

[edit] Identification

Beyer, E.; Delage, A. Bearbeitet von: Schmitz, H. Phoridae 672 Seiten, 437 Abbildungen, 15 Tafeln, 26x19cm (in Erwin Lindner: Die Fliegen der Paläarktischen Region, Band IV / 7 Teil 1)1981 ISBN 3-510-43023-9

Borgmeier, T. 1963. Revision of the North American phorid flies. Part I. The Phorinae, Aenigmatiinae, and Metopininae, except Megaselia (Diptera: Phoridae). Stud. Entomol. 6:1-256.Keys subfamilies, genera and species.

[edit] Species lists

[edit] External links

[edit] Other

Megaselia scataris is omnivorous. It has been reared from decaying vegetation, shoe polish, paint emulsions, human cadavers pickled in formalin, and even lung tissue from living people.

[edit] References

  • Disney, R. H. L. (1994). Scuttle Flies: The Phoridae. London, Chapman & Hall. ISBN 0-412-56520-X. 
  • Disney, R. H. L. (2001) Sciadoceridae (Diptera) reconsidered. Fragmenta Faunistica 44: 309-317.
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