Beak flies

Beak flies
	Female scorpion fly ( Panorpa germanica )
Systematics
Sub-stem :	Trachea (Tracheata)
Superclass :	Six-footed (Hexapoda)
Class :	Insects (Insecta)
Subclass :	Flying insects (Pterygota)
Superordinate :	New winged wing (Neoptera)
Order :	Beak flies
Scientific name
	Mecoptera
	Hyatt & Arms , 1891

The beaked flies (Mecoptera), also beaked , form an order of the insects within the new winged birds ( Neoptera) and belong to the holometabolic insects (Holometabola). They include around 600 species .

description

The body length of the animals is between 3.5 and 20 mm, the wingspan between 20 and 40 mm. Beak flies have two pairs of almost identical wings and an undifferentiated abdomen. The wings can also be greatly reduced in subgroups (Boreidae). This also allows conclusions to be drawn about the systematic position of this subgroup (see below).

The most striking feature of the beaked flies is the eponymous extension of the mouthparts in the adult animals. This comes about through an adhesion and elongation of the upper lip ( labrum ) with the forehead ( clypeus ) as well as a simultaneous elongation of the maxilla and the labium . The large wings may be missing in some species. The male scorpion flies have a particularly noticeable redesign of the rear end . Here the last segment of the abdomen has been converted into a copulatory apparatus , which is visually reminiscent of the sting of the scorpion .

development

The larvae of the beaked flies look like caterpillars, have real legs on the breast segments, and the abdomen segments have belly feet . Like the larvae of the plant wasps , they are known as anal caterpillars . On the last segment of the abdomen there is often an adhesive fork that enables the animals to move similar to that of the caterpillars .

Systematics of the beaked flies

Traditionally, 9 families are counted among the Mecoptera. The families Panorpidae (approx. 350 species) and Bittacidae (approx. 200 species) make up over 90% of all Mecoptera. The remaining species are distributed among seven other families. However, recent systematic analyzes of molecular data (Whiting, 2002) suggest that the mecoptera form a paraphylum .

Instead, it is now assumed that the winter-like fleas ( Boreidae ) are more closely related to the fleas ( Siphonaptera ) than to the other beaked flies. This is also supported by the number of sex chromosomes, features in the foregut and oogenesis .

The European beak flies belong to three different families, these are called winter flies (Boreidae), mosquito flies (Bittacidae) and scorpion flies (Panorpidae).

Beak Flies - Mecoptera
- Wintery - Boreidae (Example Boreus hyemalis )
- Exemplary mosquito - Bittacidae (in Europe only Bittacus italicus and very rarely Bittacus hageni )
- Scorpion flies - Panorpidae (example Panorpa communis )

A beak fly from the family Bittacidae from Australia

Fossil evidence

The oldest known beaked flies were found in the Lower Permian . At the time, the order included about twice as many families as it does today. Representatives of the families Bettacidae, Panorpidae and Panorpodes made of Baltic amber are also described. As of 2012, a total of 34 extinct families of the beaked flies with a total of 98 genera are known. They include, for example, Juracimbrophlebia from the Cimbrophlebiidae family .

swell

↑ Lexicon of Biology: Afterraupe. Spectrum of Science , accessed February 4, 2018 .
↑ George O. Poinar, Jr .: Life in Amber . 350 pp., 147 figs., 10 plates, Stanford University Press, Stanford (Cal.) 1992. ISBN 0-8047-2001-0
↑ 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
↑ Yongjie Wang, Conrad C. Labandeira; Chungkun Shih, Qiaoling Ding, Chen Wang, Yunyun Zhao & Dong Ren: Jurassic mimicry between a hangingfly and a ginkgo from China . In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 109, No. 50, December 11, 2012.

literature

Michael F. Whiting: Mecoptera is paraphyletic: multiple genes and phylogeny of Mecoptera and Siphonaptera. Zoologica Scripta, Volume 31, Number 1, February 2002, pp. 93-104 (12) doi: 10.1046 / j.0300-3256.2001.00095.x

Web links

Commons : Beak Flies - Collection of images, videos and audio files

[1] Lexicon of Biology: Afterraupe. Spectrum of Science , accessed February 4, 2018 .

[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

[Wang-4] Yongjie Wang, Conrad C. Labandeira; Chungkun Shih, Qiaoling Ding, Chen Wang, Yunyun Zhao & Dong Ren: Jurassic mimicry between a hangingfly and a ginkgo from China . In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 109, No. 50, December 11, 2012.