The Empidoidea are a large

monophyletic In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent co ...

superfamily of true flies, the

sister taxon In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

to the

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

(

Cyclorrhapha Cyclorrhapha is an Taxon#Ranks, unranked taxon within the infraorder (biology), infraorder Muscomorpha. They are called "Cyclorrhapha" ('circular-seamed flies') with reference to the circular aperture through which the adult escapes the puparium. ...

). These two groups are sometimes united in the unranked taxon Eremoneura. There are some 10,000 known

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

within Empidoidea,Moulton & Wiegmann (2007) which are represented on all continents except Antarctica. They are known to have existed since the Jurassic period.Grimaldi & Engel (2005) Empidoidea has been subject to much debate regarding its phylogeny. Based on morphology alone, three major hypotheses had been proposed until 2007 and seemed to be consensus for some time—however, in 2018, Wahlberg & Johanson published the most current phylogeny supported by extensive genetic data, changing the relationship between quite a few families and tribes.Wahlberg & Johanson (2018)

Description

The majority of these insects are

predator Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common List of feeding behaviours, feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation ...

y, often with large

compound eye A compound eye is a Eye, visual organ found in arthropods such as insects and crustaceans. It may consist of thousands of ommatidium, ommatidia, which are tiny independent photoreception units that consist of a cornea, lens (anatomy), lens, and p ...

s (sometimes covering almost the entire surface of the head), and tend to be associated with moist,

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...

habitats. Many have a well-developed anal lobe in the wings, and/or a small but distinct anal cell. Several species within Empidoidea are of particular interest to ethologists and ecologists, due to elaborate mating rituals and life histories involving freshwater.

Systematics

The most familiar

families Family (from ) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as ...

in the group are the Empididae and

Dolichopodidae Dolichopodidae, the long-legged flies, are a large, cosmopolitan family of true flies with more than 8,000 described species in about 250 genera. The genus '' Dolichopus'' is the most speciose, with some 600 species. Dolichopodidae generally a ...

, both of which occur worldwide and contain thousands of

. The smaller families were formerly included in the Empididae, but have since been accorded family status.Sinclair & Cumming (2006) The monophyly of most of these groups have since been confirmed by subsequent studies. The Brachystomatinae and Microphorinae are sometimes elevated to full family status, too, but this would apparently make the Empididae and Dolichopodidae

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

and thus they are retained as subfamilies here. Atelestidae forming the sister group to the rest of Empidoidea is a unanimous result in all studies that have utilized molecular data. The families are: * Atelestidae * Hybotidae – dance flies *

– long-legged flies (including Microphoridae) * Empididae – dagger flies and balloon flies (including Brachystomatidae) * Homalocnemiidae * Oreogetonidae * Ragadidae Based on the most recent phylogenetic studies, the internal classification of Empidoidea is as follows:

Footnotes

References

* (2007): The phylogenetic relationships of flies in the superfamily Empidoidea (Insecta: Diptera). '' Mol. Phylogenet. Evol.'' 43(3): 701–713. (HTML abstract) * (2005): Evolution of the Insects. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. * (2006): The morphology, higher-level phylogeny and classification of the Empidoidea (Diptera). ''

Zootaxa ''Zootaxa'' is a peer-reviewed scientific mega journal for animal taxonomists. It is published by Magnolia Press (Auckland, New Zealand). The journal was established by Zhi-Qiang Zhang in 2001 and new issues are published multiple times a week ...

'' 1180: 1–172
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* (2018): Molecular phylogenetics reveals novel relationships within Empidoidea (Diptera). ''

Systematic Entomology ''Systematic Entomology'' is a scientific journal covering the field of systematic entomology, published by the Royal Entomological Society of London. Having begun in 1932 as '' Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society of London, Series B: ...

'' 43(4): 619–636. Material was copied from this source, which is available under
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{{Taxonbar, from=Q1644617 Diptera superfamilies