Long leg flies

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Long leg flies
Poecilobothrus nobilitatus

Poecilobothrus nobilitatus

Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Order : Fly (Diptera)
Subordination : Flies (Brachycera)
Partial order : Asilomorpha
Superfamily : Empidoidea
Family : Long leg flies
Scientific name
Dolichopodidae
Latreille , 1809
Subfamilies
  • Achalcinae
  • Babindellinae
  • Diaphorinae
  • Dolichopodinae
  • Hydrophorinae
  • Medeterinae
  • Microphorinae
  • Neurigoninae
  • Peloropeodinae
  • Rhaphiinae
  • Sciapodinae
  • Sympycninae
  • Xanthochlorinae

The long-legged flies (Dolichopodidae) are a family of the two-winged flies (Diptera). Within this large group of flying insects , they are counted among the flies (Brachycera). About 5000 representatives of this group are known worldwide, 805 species and subspecies are common in Europe. These are small to medium-sized flies that reach a body length of 1.5 to 7.5 millimeters.

Characteristics of the long-legged flies

Long-legged fly

The long-legged flies are often colorful and have a metallic sheen. Most species are named after the long legs, which are stretched in the resting position and thus give the animals a long-legged appearance. The mouthparts are also conspicuous, with the lower lip ( labium ) designed like claws for grasping prey. This is particularly the case with the Melenderia species of North America. The males of the flies often have a very pronounced and hairy brace on the abdomen, sometimes they also have a special shape of the antennae and a redesign of the legs.

Way of life of the long-legged flies

Long-legged fly ( Dolichopus sp. ) Eating prey (video, 1m 23s)

The long-legged flies are hunters who hunt small insects, especially near or on the water surface. In addition, thanks to their long legs, they are able to pull worms and insect larvae out of the ground or fish out of the water. The prey is slit open with appendages of the movable upper lip ( labrum ) and then sucked out. The females in particular hunt a lot, probably due to the increased protein requirement for egg production. However, both sexes take honeydew from leaf surfaces, some species are pollinators and feed on nectar , the representatives of the genus Ortochile are mouthparts extended trunk-like for this purpose.

The long-legged flies are skillful runners and are even able to jump. They are almost constantly in motion and occasionally fly up again and again, for example to change the seat sheet. Medetera species walk on tree trunks, always walking almost sideways.

Reproduction and development

Long-legged flies lay their eggs individually in the substrates in which the larvae later reside, and in some species also in the water. The females of the Thrypticus species push their eggs into reed tissue with the help of a special ovipositor , on which their larvae feed.

The larvae are very similar to those of the dance flies (Empididae), and they usually feed hunting. Most species do not specialize in prey; however, the larvae of the Medetera species primarily hunt the larvae and pupae of bark beetles . Pupation probably takes place mostly in or near the larval habitat. The pupae are provided with long breathing tubes and in some species live in a cocoon made of spider silk, often encrusted with substrate particles.

Systematics

Fossil evidence

The oldest fossil evidence of this family is from the Cretaceous age and comes from Canadian and Siberian amber . The family is represented in numerous genera in the Eocene Baltic amber . Representatives of the Dolichopodidae have also been recovered from other tertiary amber deposits.

Micro-Dolichopodidae

The so-called Micro-Dolichopodidae were often overlooked because of their small size of a maximum of 1.5 millimeters, but they are a focus of recent research on long-legged flies. They are only known from the New World , but are unlikely to form a uniform kin group.

The species-rich genus Enlinia , together with Harmstonia, forms the subfamily Enliniinae (Robinson, 1970):

Another group of genera is externally close to the subfamily Medeterinae, which is also represented in the Old World , but differs significantly in the structure of the male genital organs, so that these genera are incertae sedis .

Although one in 2015 discovered genus is close to the Enliniinae, but also as incertae sedis considered

Subfamilies

According to the revision by Bradley J. Sinclair and Jeffrey M. Cumming from 2006, the long-legged flies in the narrower sense comprise the following 15 subfamilies:

The small dance flies (Microphorinae), formerly a family of their own, were also incorporated into the family of long-legged flies after the cladistic studies by Sinclair and Cumming. The small dance flies include the genera:

The Parathalassiinae , formerly regarded as a tribe or a subfamily of the small dance flies, were separated from the group and also placed as a separate subfamily to the long-legged flies. They include the genera:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dolichopodidae in Fauna Europaea. Retrieved June 11, 2012
  2. ↑ George O. Poinar, Jr .: Life in Amber . 350 pp., 147 figs., 10 plates, Stanford University Press, Stanford (Cal.) 1992. ISBN 0-8047-2001-0
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Weitschat and Wilfried Wichard: Atlas of plants and animals in Baltic amber , 256 p., Numerous. Fig., Pfeil-Verlag, Munich 1998. ISBN 3-931516-45-8
  4. ↑ Harold Robinson: Family Dolichopodidae. In: N. Papavero (Ed.): A Catalog of the Diptera of the Americas South of the United States . 40, pp. 1-92, Secretaria da Agricultura, São Paulo 1970
  5. ↑ Harold E. Robinson: A synopsis of the Dolichopodidae (Diptera) of the southeastern United States and adjacent regions. Miscellaneous Publications of the Entomological Society of America, 4, pp. 103-192, 1964
  6. ↑ Justin B. Runyon & Harold Robinson: Hurleyella, a new genus of Nearctic Dolichopodidae (Diptera). Zootaxa, 2400, pp. 57-65, 2010
  7. ↑ a b Harold Robinson: Two new genera of Dolichopodidae from Mexico (Diptera). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington, 66, pp. 245-252, 1964
  8. ↑ Harold Robinson: Bredin-Archbold-Smithsonian Biological Survey of Dominica: The family Dolichopodidae with some related Antillean and Panamanian species (Diptera). Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, 185, pp. 1-141, 1975
  9. ↑ Justin B. Runyon: Haromyia, a new genus of long-legged flies from Dominica (Diptera: Dolichopodidae) . Zootaxa, 3964, 5, pp. 589-595, 2015
  10. ↑ Bradley J. Sinclair & Jeffrey M. Cumming: Morphology, higher-level phylogeny and classification of the Empidoidea. Zootaxa, 1180, pp. 1–172, Magnolia Press, 2006 PDF (English)

literature

  • J. Haupt & H. Haupt: Flies and mosquitoes - observation, way of life . Augsburg 1998
  • K. Honomichl, Heiko Bellmann: Biology and ecology of insects . CD-Rom, Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart 1994
  • M. Pollet, P. Grootaert: Ecological data on Dolichopodidae (Diptera) from a woodland ecosystem . Bull. Kon. Belg. Is. Nat. Ent., 57, pp. 173-186, 1987

Web links

Commons : Langbeinfliegen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files