Morphology of the puparium and breeding sites of eight species of Heleomyzidae (Diptera)

Abstract

Rearing data from higher plants, carrion and bird and mammal nests and burrows are provided for eight species of Heleomyzidae (Diptera): Heleomyzinae: Heleomyza borealis Boheman, Scoliocentra brachypterna (Loew) and Eccoptomera microps (Meigen); Heteromyzinae: Tephrochlamys flavipes (Zetterstedt), Tephrochlamys tarsalis (Zetterstedt) and Heteromyza rotundicornis (Zetterstedt); and Suillinae: Suillia ustulata (Meigen) and Suillia variegata (Loew). The puparia of these species are described. Unique characters and characters in combination distinguish each species and their subfamilies, suggesting that early stages are a valuable source of taxonomic data. Head skeleton and other features suggest contrasting food gathering mechanisms, with heleomyzines suited to feeding on food of low viscosity, suillines on high-viscosity or firm food and heteromyzines on food of intermediate viscosity.

Keywords:

• breeding sites
• puparium
• description
• taxonomic characters
• functional morphology
• head skeleton
• locomotion
• Cyclorrhapha

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Keith Bland for making available specimens and data from his long-term and ongoing programme of rearing plant-breeding insects and Geoff Hancock for facilitating the loan of his reared heleomyzids from the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow. I am also grateful to David Horsfield for assistance in identifying specimens and to him, Antonio Ricarte and Richard Lyszkowski for helpful discussion of heleomyzid larval morphology.