''Scaptomyza'' is a genus of vinegar flies, insects in the family

Drosophilidae The Drosophilidae are a diverse, cosmopolitan family of flies, which includes species called fruit flies, although they are more accurately referred to as vinegar or pomace flies. Another distantly related family of flies, Tephritidae, are true ...

. , there are 273 described species of ''Scaptomyza''. Of those, 148 are

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

to the

Hawaiian archipelago The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Ku ...

. This genus is part of the species-rich lineage of

Hawaiian Drosophilidae The Hawaiian Drosophilidae are a lineage of flies within the genus ''Drosophila.'' This Monophyly, monophyletic clade includes all of the Endemism, endemic Hawaiian ''Drosophila'' and all members of the genus ''Scaptomyza'', which contains both H ...

, and is the sister lineage to the endemic Hawaiian ''Drosophila''. The genus ''Scaptomyza'' is one of several nested within the

paraphyletic In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...

genus ''

Drosophila ''Drosophila'' () is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or (less frequently) pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many s ...

.'' Two hypotheses have been proposed to explain the geographical distribution of ''Scaptomyza.'' The "single Hawaiian origin" hypothesis suggests that the common ancestor of ''Scaptomyza'' and Hawaiian ''Drosophila'' colonized Hawaii once, followed by several migrations to the mainland within ''Scaptomyza''. Alternatively, the "multiple Hawaiian origins" hypothesis suggests that the current distribution is the result of multiple colonization events (once for Hawaiian ''Drosophila'' and multiple times in ''Scaptomyza''). One member of the genus in particular, '' S. flava'', is studied as a laboratory model organism for

herbivory A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthp ...

and the evolution of plant-insect interactions. One specimen, assigned to the species '' S. dominicana,'' has been described from

Dominican amber Dominican amber is amber from the Dominican Republic derived from resin of the extinct tree ''Hymenaea protera''. Dominican amber differentiates itself from Baltic amber by being nearly always transparent, and it has a higher number of fossil incl ...

that is estimated to have been deposited at least 23 million years ago. Scaptomyza P1350074a

References

External links

* Drosophilidae genera Articles created by Qbugbot Drosophilidae {{drosophilidae-stub

See also

References

Further reading

External links