''Lipara'' is a genus of
flies
Flies are insects of the Order (biology), order Diptera, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwin ...
in the family
Chloropidae
The Chloropidae are a family of flies commonly known as frit flies or grass flies. About 2000 described species are in over 160 genera distributed worldwide. These are usually very small flies, yellow or black and appearing shiny due to the virtu ...
. Among the Palearctic species, a specific community of bees and wasps make their nests in the galls of chloropid flies. Most frequently, they use the galls induced by ''
Lipara lucens'' on common reed stems. Some of these aculeate hymenopteran species, such as the digger wasp ''
Pemphredon fabricii'' (''
Crabronidae
The Crabronidae is a large family of wasps within the superfamily Apoidea.
Taxonomy and phylogeny
This family has historically been treated as a subfamily in the now-defunct Spheciformes group under the family Sphecidae. The Spheciformes inclu ...
'') or the solitary bee ''
Hylaeus pectoralis'' (''
Colletidae
The Colletidae are a family (biology), family of bees, and are often referred to collectively as plasterer bees or polyester bees, due to the method of smoothing the walls of their nest cells with secretions applied with their mouthparts; these s ...
'') are specialized for nesting in galls induced by Lipara spp. more than a year ago.
Species
*''
L. lucens''
Meigen, 1830
*''
L. rufitarsis''
Loew, 1858
*''
L. pullitarsis''
Doskočil & Chvála, 1971
*''
L. similis''
Schiner, 1854
Europe
References
Sources
*
Oscinellinae
Chloropidae genera
Taxa named by Johann Wilhelm Meigen
Gall-inducing insects
{{Chloropidae-stub