Cyclorrhapha is an unranked taxon within the

infraorder Order ( la, ordo) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and ...

Muscomorpha The Brachyceran infraorder Muscomorpha is a large and diverse group of flies, containing the bulk of the Brachycera, and, most of the known flies. It includes a number of the most familiar flies, such as the housefly, the fruit fly, and the blo ...

. They are called "Cyclorrhapha" ('circular-seamed flies') with reference to the circular aperture through which the adult escapes the

puparium A pupa ( la, pupa, "doll"; plural: ''pupae'') is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in the ...

. This is a

circumscriptional name In biological classification, circumscriptional names are taxon names that are not ruled by ICZN and are defined by the particular set of members included. Circumscriptional names are used mainly for taxa above family-group level (e. g. order or c ...

that has significant historical familiarity, but in the present classification, this name is synonymous with the more recent "

". Cyclorrhapha underwent major adaptive radiation that led to the creation of over 72 000 species. These species share multiple attributes such as the 360-degree rotation of the male terminalia.

References

Muscomorpha Protostome unranked clades {{Muscomorpha-stub