Hippoboscoidea

Hippoboscoidea
Temporal range: Ypresian–Present [1]
Bird louse fly (Ornithomya avicularia)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Diptera
(unranked): Eremoneura
(unranked): Cyclorrhapha
Section: Schizophora
Subsection: Calyptratae
Superfamily: Hippoboscoidea
Families

About 5, see text.

Hippoboscoidea is a superfamily of the Calyptratae. The flies in this superfamily are blood-feeding obligate parasites of their hosts. Four families are often placed here:

(Note that the Mystacinobiidae, while also a bat fly, belongs to the superfamily Oestroidea).

The Hippoboscidae are commonly called louse flies or ked flies. The bat flies are Nycteribiidae and Streblidae (along with Mystacinobiidae); the Streblidae are probably not monophyletic.[2] The family Glossinidae, monotypic as to genus, contains the tsetse flies, economically important as the vectors of trypanosomiasis. The enigmatic Mormotomyiidae are believed to belong to the Ephydroidea and not to Hippoboscoidea as previously construed.[3]

In older literature, this group is often referred to as the Pupipara ("pupa-bearers"), because, unlike virtually all other insects, most of the larval development takes place inside the mother's body, and pupation occurs almost immediately after "birth" – in essence, instead of laying eggs, a female lays full-sized pupae one at a time. In the strict sense, the Pupipara only encompass the Hippoboscidae, Nycteribiidae, and "Streblidae", which in older works were all included in the Hippoboscidae.

  1. ^ Nel, André; Garrouste, Romain; Engel, Michael S. (2023). "The earliest Pupipara (Diptera: Hippoboscoidea): A New Genus and Species from the lower Eocene of the Green River Formation". Palaeoentomology. 6 (1): 058–063. doi:10.11646/palaeoentomology.6.1.9.
  2. ^ Petersen et al. (2007)
  3. ^ Kirk-Spriggs, A.H., Kotrba, M. & Copeland, R.S. 2011. Further details of the morphology of the enigmatic African fly Mormotomyia hirsuta Austen (Diptera: Mormotomyiidae). African Invertebrates 52 (1): 145-165."Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-10-04. Retrieved 2011-10-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)