Atherimorpha
Taxonomy
This page represents the following TreeOfLife-200M taxonomic path.[1]
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Arthropoda
- Class: Insecta
- Order: Diptera
- Family: Rhagionidae
- Genus: Atherimorpha
Visual Description
Members of the genus Atherimorpha are flies within the family Rhagionidae. Observations from the TreeOfLife-200M dataset indicate that these insects possess a typical dipteran body plan, characterized by a distinct head, thorax, and abdomen.[1] While specific morphological traits can vary significantly between species, they generally exhibit slender to moderately robust bodies with functional wings in most species.[1]
Distribution and Biology
The genus Atherimorpha is considered a Gondwanan relic, with a distribution that includes South America, Southern Africa, and Australia.[2] Females of this genus are infrequently collected, and for more than half of the described species, the female remains unknown to science.
A notable biological finding within the genus is the discovery of brachyptery (reduced wings) in the female of Atherimorpha latipennis, which also exhibits a poorly defined scutellum compared to the male. This represents the first documented case of brachyptery within the family Rhagionidae.
Gallery
References
- 1 2 3 Dataset view for Animalia / Arthropoda / Insecta / Diptera / Rhagionidae / Atherimorpha constructed from imageomics/TreeOfLife-200M records under this taxonomic path. Hugging Face Datasets. https://huggingface.co/datasets/imageomics/TreeOfLife-200M.
- ↑ John M. Midgley; Burgert S. Muller. Description of the female of Atherimorpha latipennis Stuckenberg (Diptera, Rhagionidae): the first record of brachyptery in Rhagionidae. ZooKeys. 2023. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1178.107357.