Anisopodidae

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wood gnats

Sylvicola fenestralis

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Diptera
Suborder:	Nematocera
Family:	Anisopodidae

Genera

Anisopus
Carreraia
Cretoseguya(Extinct)
Eoanisopodites(Extinct)
Hongocaloneura(Extinct)
Huaxiarhyphus
Lobogaster
Megarhyphus
Mesobrachyopteryx(Extinct)
Mesorhyphus
Mesochria
Mycetobia
Olbiogaster
Pachyrhyphus
Sinorhyphus
Sylvicola
Thiras
Valeseguya

Anisopodidae is a small cosmopolitan family of gnat-like flies with 154 described extant species in 15 genera, and several described fossil taxa. Some species are saprophagous or fungivorous. They are mostly small to medium-sized flies, except the genera Olbiogaster and Lobogaster, which are large with bizarrely spatulate abdomens. Their phylogenetic placement is controversial. They have been proposed to be the sister group to the higher flies, the Brachycera (Oosterbroek and Courtney 1995). Some authors (Amorim and Grimaldi 2006) consider this group to be four distinct families- Anisopodidae, Mycetobiidae, Olbiogastridae, and Valeseguyidae.

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[edit] References

Amorim, D. D. S. and D. A. Grimaldi. (2006). Valeseguyidae, a new family of Diptera in the Scatopsoidea, with a new genus in Cretaceous amber from Myanmar. Systematic Entomology 31 (3), 508–516.

Oosterbroek, P. and G. Courtney. 1995. Phylogeny of the nematocerous families of Diptera (Insecta). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 115:267-311.