The Tephritoidea are a superfamily 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 hindwing ...
. It has over 7,800 species, the majority of them in family Tephritidae.
The following families are included:
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Ctenostylidae
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Eurygnathomyiidae
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Lonchaeidae - lance flies
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Pallopteridae — flutter flies
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Piophilidae — skippers
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Platystomatidae — signal flies
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Pyrgotidae
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Richardiidae
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Tephritidae
The Tephritidae are one of two fly families referred to as fruit flies, the other family being the Drosophilidae. The family Tephritidae does not include the biological model organisms of the genus ''Drosophila
''Drosophila'' () is a ge ...
— fruit flies
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Ulidiidae
The Ulidiidae (formerly Otitidae) or picture-winged flies are a large and diverse cosmopolitan family of flies (Diptera), and as in related families, most species are herbivorous or detritivorous. They are often known as picture-winged flies, alo ...
(Otitidae) — picture-winged flies
The
Tachiniscinae, formerly ranked as the family Tachiniscidae, are now included in the Tephritidae.
Description
Tephritoidea are generally rather hairy flies with
setae weakly differentiated. They have the following synapomorphies: male
tergum
A ''tergum'' (Latin for "the back"; plural ''terga'', associated adjective tergal) is the dorsal ('upper') portion of an arthropod segment other than the head. The anterior edge is called the 'base' and posterior edge is called the 'apex' or 'm ...
6 strongly reduced or absent; surstylus or medial surstylus with toothlike prensisetae (in Piophilidae only in one genus); female sterna 4-6 with anterior rodlike apodemes; female tergosternum 7 consisting of two portions, the anterior forming a tubular
oviscape
The ovipositor is a tube-like organ used by some animals, especially insects, for the laying of eggs. In insects, an ovipositor consists of a maximum of three pairs of appendages. The details and morphology of the ovipositor vary, but typical ...
and the posterior consisting of two pairs of longitudinal taeniae.
In most Tephritoidea, the anal cell of a wing has a characteristic shape: the anal crossvein is indented while the cell's outer posterior angle is produced into an acute lobe. The exceptions to this rule are Platystomatidae and some Tephritidae, Ulidiidae (=Otitidae), and Pyrgotidae.
Many tephritoid families have spots or patterns on their wings. These are Pallopteridae, Platystomatidae, Pyrgotidae, Richardiidae, Tephritidae and Ulidiidae.
Ecology
Tephritoidea includes plant pests in the families Tephritidae, Lonchaeidae and Ulidiidae.
In these pest species, adult females lay their eggs on plant tissues, which hatch into larvae that begin feeding.
[ However, Tephritoidea also includes ]parasitoids
In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionary strategies within parasitis ...
(Ctenostylidae, Pyrgotidae and the tephritid subfamily Tachiniscinae) and saprophages that feed on decaying plants (subfamily Phytalmiinae and some Lonchaeidae).[
]
Phylogeny
Tephritoidea is a monophyletic
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic ...
superfamily that can be divided into two also-monophyletic groups: the Piophilidae Family Group (Pallopteridae, Circumphallidae, Lonchaeidae, Piophilidae and Eurygnathomyiidae) and the Tephritidae Family Group (Richardiidae, Ulidiidae, Platystomatidae, Tephritidae, Ctenostylidae and Pyrgotidae).
Evolution
The first Tephritoidea are believed to have evolved in the mid-Paleocene
The Paleocene, ( ) or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 million years ago (mya). It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name is a combination of the Ancient Greek ''pal ...
, approximately 59 million years ago.
References
External links
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*The Diptera Site
Fruit Fly (Diptera: Tephritidae) Phylogeny
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1093493
Diptera superfamilies