''Massalongia'' is a genus of flies in the family

Cecidomyiidae Cecidomyiidae is a family of diptera, flies known as gall midges or gall gnats. As the name implies, the larvae of most gall midges feed within plant tissue, creating abnormal plant growths called galls. Cecidomyiidae are very fragile small in ...

. The larvae induce

gall Galls (from the Latin , 'oak-apple') or ''cecidia'' (from the Greek , anything gushing out) are a kind of swelling growth on the external tissues of plants. Plant galls are abnormal outgrowths of plant tissues, similar to benign tumors or war ...

s on

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 3 ...

es. In 1855, the genus was named after Italian lichenologist

Abramo Bartolommeo Massalongo Abramo Bartolommeo Massalongo (13 May 1824 – 25 May 1860) was an Italian paleobotanist and lichenologist. He was born in Tregnago in the Province of Verona and took a great interest in botany as a young man. Massalongo joined the faculty of med ...

by German lichenologist

Gustav Wilhelm Körber Gustav Wilhelm Körber (10 January 1817, Jelenia Góra, Hirschberg – 27 January 1885, Breslau) was a Silesian-German lichenologist and a professor at the University of Wrocław, University of Breslau. He specialized in the flora of Central Europ ...

Species

The following six species have been described in this genus: * '' Massalongia altaica'' Fedotova, 1990 * '' Massalongia bachmaieri'' Möhn, 1954 * '' Massalongia betulifolia'' Harris, 1974 * '' Massalongia nakamuratetsui'' Elsayed & Tokuda 2020 * '' Massalongia papyrifera'' (Gagné, 1967) * '' Massalongia rubra'' (Kieffer, 1890)

References

Cecidomyiinae Cecidomyiidae genera Taxa named by Jean-Jacques Kieffer Insects described in 1890 Gall-inducing insects {{Sciaroidea-stub