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Bombyliidae

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Bombyliidae
Bombylius major
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Insecta
Order:
Diptera
Suborder:
Brachycera
Infraorder:
Asilomorpha
Superfamily:
Asiloidea
Family:
Bombyliidae

Latreille , 1802
Subfamilies
Synonyms

Phthiriidae
Usiidae
Systropodidae

Two species of unidentified beeflies from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.

The Bombyliidae are a family of flies. Their common name is bee flies. Adults generally feed on nectar and pollen, some being important pollinators. Larvae generally are parasitoids of other insects.

Description

The Bombyliidae are a large family of flies comprising hundreds of genera, but the life cycles of most species are known poorly, or not at all. They range in size from very small (2 mm in length) to very large for flies (wingspan of some 40 mm).[1][2] When at rest, many species hold their wings at a characteristic "swept back" angle. Adults generally feed on nectar and pollen, some being important pollinators, often with spectacularly long proboscises adapted to plants such as Lapeirousia species with very long, narrow floral tubes. Many Bombyliidae superficially resemble bees and accordingly the prevalent common name for a member of the family is bee fly.[2] Possibly the resemblance is aposematic, affording the adults some protection from predators.

In parts of East Anglia locals refer to them as 'beewhals', in reference to their lance-like proboscises.[citation needed]

The larval stages are predators or parasitoids of the eggs and larvae of other insects. The adult females usually deposit eggs in the vicinity of possible hosts, quite often in the burrows of beetles or wasps/solitary bees. Although insect parasitoids usually are fairly host-specific, often highly host-specific, some Bombyliidae are opportunistic and will attack a variety of hosts.

While the Bombyliidae include a large number of species in great variety, most species do not often appear in abundance, and for its size this is one of the most poorly known families of insects. There are at least 4,500 described species, and certainly thousands yet to be described.

Species include:


Genera

Bee Fly landing on a flower
Villa sp. feeding
Bombyliid fly on Bidens laevis

See also

Wikispecies has information related to Bombyliidae.

References

  1. ^ Alan Weaving; Mike Picker; Griffiths, Charles Llewellyn (2003). Field Guide to Insects of South Africa. New Holland Publishers, Ltd. ISBN 1-86872-713-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ a b Hull, Frank Montgomery, Bee flies of the world: the genera of the family Bombyliidae Washington, Smithsonian Institution Press 1973 ISBN 0-87474-131-9. Downloadable from: http://www.archive.org/details/beefliesofworl2861973hull
  • Bowden, J.,1980 Family Bombyliidae. pp. 381–430. In R.W. Crosskey (ed.), Catalogue of the Diptera of the Afrotropical Region, 1437 pp., London: British Museum (Natural History)
  • Engel, E.O., 1932-1937. Bombyliidae. In: Die Fliegen der paläarktischen Region 4(3) ( Erwin Lindner, ed.): 1-619, pl. 1-15. E. Schweizerbart, Stuttgart.). Old and outdated, not easy to get and expensive but some of the only keys to taxa in the Palaearctic Region.
  • Greathead & Evenhuis (Greathead, D.J., & N.L. Evenhuis, 1997. Family Bombyliidae. In: Contributions to a manual of Palaearctic Diptera Volume 2 (L. Papp & B. Darvas, eds.): 487-512. Science Herald, Budapest.) provide a key to the Palaearctic genera and (may) give references to available generic revisions.
  • Evenhuis, N.L. 1991. Catalog of genus-group names of bee flies (Diptera: Bombyliidae) Bishop Museum Bulletin of Entomology 5: 1–105.
  • Evenhuis, N.L. & Greathead, D.J. 1999. World catalog of bee flies (Diptera: Bombyliidae). Backhuys Publishers, Leiden, 756 pp.
  • Hull, F.M. 1973. Bee flies of the world. The genera of the family Bombyliidae.Washington (Smithsonian Institution Press) 687 pp. Keys subfamilies, genera (many generic placements superseded by Evenhuis & Greathead, 1999).
  • Yeates, David K. 1994. The cladistics and classification of the Bombyliidae (Diptera: Asiloidea). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History ; no. 219, 191 pp.
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