Nemestrinoidea is a small,

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 flies, whose relationship to the other

Brachycera The Brachycera are a suborder of the order Diptera. It is a major suborder consisting of around 120 families. Their most distinguishing characteristic is reduced antenna segmentation. Description A summary of the main physical characteristic ...

is uncertain; they are sometimes grouped with the

Tabanomorpha The Brachyceran infraorder Tabanomorpha is a small group that consists primarily of two large families, the Tabanidae (horse and deer flies) and Rhagionidae (snipe flies), and an assortment of very small affiliated families, most of which have ...

rather than the Asilomorpha. They are presently considered to be the sister taxon to the

Asiloidea The Asiloidea comprise a very large Taxonomic rank, superfamily insects in the order fly, Diptera, the true fly, flies. It has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring worldwide. It includes the family Bombyliidae, the bee flies, which are parasitoi ...

. The group contains two very small

extant Extant or Least-concern species, least concern is the opposite of the word extinct. It may refer to: * Extant hereditary titles * Extant literature, surviving literature, such as ''Beowulf'', the oldest extant manuscript written in English * Exta ...

families, the

Acroceridae The Acroceridae are a small family of odd-looking flies. They have a hump-backed appearance with a strikingly small head, generally with a long proboscis for accessing nectar. They are rare and not widely known. The most frequently applied common ...

and

Nemestrinidae Nemestrinidae, or tangle-veined flies is a family of flies in the superfamily Nemestrinoidea, closely related to Acroceridae. Larvae are endoparasitoids of either grasshoppers (Trichopsideinae) or scarab beetles (Hirmoneurinae). Some are co ...

, both of which occur worldwide but contain only small numbers of rare species. One

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

family, Rhagionemestriidae, is also included in Nemestrinoidea. These insects are

parasitoid In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host (biology), host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionarily stable str ...

s, with Acroceridae attacking

spider Spiders (order (biology), order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude spider silk, silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and ran ...

s, and Nemestrinidae typically attacking

Orthoptera Orthoptera () is an order of insects that comprises the grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets, including closely related insects, such as the bush crickets or katydids and wētā. The order is subdivided into two suborders: Caelifera – gras ...

. Both families have unusual and distinctive wing venation by which they can be easily recognized, in addition to other features.

References

External links

Tree of Life Brachycera
Diptera superfamilies {{Nemestrinoidea-stub