Xylophaginae
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| Xylophaginae | ||||||||||||
| Fallén , 1810 | ||||||||||||
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The Xylophaginae , also known as wood flies in the narrower sense, are a subfamily in the family of wood flies (Xylophagidae).
features
These flies are usually slim and on the surface resemble the ichneumon wasps , which, however, belong to the hymenoptera . The wooden flies of the subfamily Xylophaginae have a relatively large head with long antennae.
Way of life
In sparse deciduous forests they often fly up and down the trunks, but the biological role of this behavior is not yet known (courtship behavior?). They probably feed on tree sap, which they lick up on tree wounds. The larvae, which are also very slender, live under the bark of deciduous trees or in decaying dead wood and in tree stumps. They are predators and feed on various insect larvae and worms. The overwintering probably always takes place as a larva.
Systematics
Worldwide, 35 species from this group are known, in Germany only four. In Europe there is one genus with five species.
- Xylophagus ater Meigen , 1804
- Xylophagus cinctus ( De Geer , 1776)
- Xylophagus junki ( Szilády , 1932)
- Xylophagus kowarzi ( Pleske , 1925)
- Xylophagus matsumurae Miyatake , 1965
Fossil evidence
Fossil wood flies are extremely rare. So far, only three types of Eocene Baltic amber have been described. In addition, there are other genera from the same deposit, which are assigned to the Rachiceridae, which are sometimes managed as an independent family. About as yet undetermined wooden flies are reported from Cretaceous Siberian amber .
swell
Individual evidence
- ↑ Xylophagidae. Fauna Europaea, Version 1.3, April 19, 2007 , accessed on June 4, 2008 .
- ↑ VV Zherichin, ID Sukacheva: On Cretaceous insect bearing ambers (retinites) of northern Sibiria . In reports on the 24th Annual Readings in Memory of NA Kholodkovsky. Leningrad 1973.
- ↑ George O. Poinar, Jr .: Life in Amber. Stanford University Press, Stanford (Cal.) 1992, ISBN 0-8047-2001-0 .
literature
- Klaus Honomichl, Heiko Bellmann : Biology and ecology of insects . CD-Rom, Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart 1994.
