Flower flies
| Flower flies | ||||||||||||
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Anthomyiidae sp. |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Anthomyiidae | ||||||||||||
| Latreille , 1829 | ||||||||||||
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The flower flies (Anthomyiidae) are a family of the two-winged (Diptera) and belong to the flies (Brachycera). Around 1200 species of this group are known worldwide, around 220 of them in Central Europe. The flower flies are not identical to the English flower flies , which usually means the hover flies (Syrphidae).
The small to medium-sized flies are often brightly bristled and inconspicuously colored, but some are markedly gray-black or with yellow legs and a yellow abdomen.
Behavior of the flower flies
As their name suggests, they are often found on flowers, where they feed on nectar and pollen . However, some species also feed on other liquids, such as manure, sweat, or blood flowing from wounds. Before the food is sucked up, it is mixed with saliva and it is not uncommon for it to be choked out and sucked in several times as drops. Even small amounts of cantharidin have an attractive effect on the species Anthomyia pluvialis , but the meaning of this is still unclear.
Eggs are usually laid on the host plants of the larvae, the representatives of the genus Delia lay the eggs in the ground.
Larval development
The larvae of most flower flies live on mushrooms or plant foods. The larvae of seaweed flies (such as the Fucellia species) are often found in large numbers in the seaweed washed up on the coast. The larvae of several other species ( Hammomyia , Hylephila ) live in nests of wasps and solitary bees, where they mainly consume the supplies or waste entered by the nest owners. Some species are parasitoid e, for example in egg clusters of grasshoppers and in larvae of various insects. The overwintering usually takes place as a pupa in the ground.
species
Genus Botanophila
Botanophila phrenione is a mushroom eater . The female, presumably attracted by smell, lays an egg on the piston-shaped fruit bed of the grass core fungus ( Epichloe typhina ), the larva then eats the mycelium inside the bed. The imago also eats the fungus and presumably promotes its spread by carrying the spores on.
The lettuce fly or lettuce fly ( Botanophila gnava ) lays its eggs one by one on lettuce flowers in July to mid-September. The larva eats the seeds, the pupa overwinters in the ground.
Genus Pegomya
The beet or Runkel Fly ( Pegomya hyoscyami ) probably exists in two subspecies, one of which in the nightshade family and lives (Solanaceae) to Beet. After overwintering the pupa in the ground and laying eggs on the underside of the leaves of melde , beet , spinach or chard, the larvae mine in the leaves, whereby one larva can attack several leaves or plants. There are probably three to four generations per year.
Genus Lasiomma
The larch seed fly or larch cone fly ( Lasiomma laricicola ) pushes the eggs under the scales of young larch cones in May, almost immediately after hatching from the pupa , in which the larvae then eat the ovules and the cone spindle. The damage done is sometimes considerable.
Genus Delia
The fallow fly ( Delia coarctata ) lays around 40 eggs in light, loose soil from July to September. The larvae hatch in February to March of the following year and penetrate the young plants of grass , including cereals (especially winter wheat ). They destroy the heart leaf and migrate to new plants. Pupation takes place in the ground in mid-May.
The onion fly ( Delia antiqua ) lays the eggs in young onions after hatching the imago from the pupae that have overwintered. The larvae feed on the stems and onions and migrate to new plants; the larvae of the second and probably also the third generation feed on the fully grown onions.
The little cabbage fly ( Delia brassicae ) is a very important pest on cabbage plants . From the end of June, the female lays around a hundred eggs on the food plant, which she perceives visually and olfactorily. In the experiment, it was attracted, for example, by squeeze beet juice or the mustard oil glucoside sinigrin . It first runs around on the leaves (probably important for chemoreception by the tarsi), then down the stem to the ground, the eggs are laid at the base of the stem and the eggs are then covered with soil particles. The larvae, which reach a body length of up to 9 mm, live in two to three generations on different cruciferous vegetables containing mustard oil and mustard oil glucosides and feed on or in the roots and on higher parts of the plant. In doing so, they can cause considerable damage.
The larvae of the great cabbage fly ( Delia floralis ) live mainly on radishes and radishes . The way of life corresponds to that of the little cabbage fly, but it only produces one generation per year.
literature
- J. Haupt, H. Haupt: Flies and mosquitoes - observation, way of life. Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-89440-278-4 .
- K. Honomichl, H. Bellmann: Biology and ecology of the insects. CD-ROM. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-437-25020-5 .
