Sphaeroceridae
family of insects
Sphaeroceridae are a family of true flies in the order Diptera, often called small dung flies, lesser dung flies or lesser corpse flies due to their saprophagous habits. They belong to the typical fly suborder Brachycera as can be seen by their short antennae, and more precisely they are members of the section Schizophora. There are over 1,300 species and about 125 genera accepted as valid today, but new taxa are still being described.
Unlike the large "corpse flies" or blow-flies of the family Calliphoridae and the large dung flies of the family Scathophagidae, the small dung flies are members of the schizophoran subsection Acalyptratae. Among their superfamily Sphaeroceroidea, they seem to be particularly close relatives of the family Heleomyzidae.
Description and ecology
Dung flies are small to minute, usually dull-colored flies with characteristically thickened first tarsomere of the posterior leg. The first tarsal segment is less than 1+1/2 times as long as the second tarsal segment and dilated. The crossvein separating the second basal and discal cells is missing. Veins four and five often fade apically. They occur all over the world except in regions with permanent ice-cover.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sphaeroceridae” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.