Under Construction

Unplaced Acalyptratae

Keith Bayless
Containing group: Schizophora

Introduction

Three genera of flies in the Schizophora, Mallochianamyia Santos-Neto, Paraleucopis Malloch, and Schizostomyia Malloch, are unplaced to family. Wheeler (2000) suggested that these genera may form a monophyletic clade. This assemblage is sometimes referred to as the "Schizostomyia group" (Hamilton et al. 2006). Wheeler (2000) and Hamilton et al. (2006) mention that there is an undescribed genus of flies from Australia related to these three genera.

Schizostomyia and Mallochianamyia are from Chile (Wheeler 2000, Thompson 2005) and Paraleucopis is found in Mexico and the Southwestern United States. Paraleucopis larvae are inhabitants of bird's nests (McAlpine 1987).

Discussion of Phylogenetic Relationships

Paraleucopis has been associated with Chamaemyiidae, but McAlpine (1987) admits that this placement was provisional. Though Paraleucopis shares some characteristics with Chamaemyiidae, its genitalic configuration is strongly divergent from the rest of the family. Morphological data suggest that this group may be related to Asteiidae, particularly the genus Leiomyza (McAlpine 1989).

References

Hamilton, J., D. Yeates, A. Hastings, D. Colless, D. McAlpine, D. Bickel, G. Daniels, M. Schneider, P. Cranston, and S. Marshall. 2006. On the fly: the interactive atlas and key to Australia fly families. (CD-ROM) Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS) and Centre for Biological Information Technology (CBIT).

McAlpine, J.F. 1987. 88. Chamaemyiidae. Manual Nearct. Dipt. 2:965-971.

McAlpine, J.F. 1989. 116. Phylogeny and classification of the Muscomorpha. Manual Nearct. Dipt. 3:1397-1518.

Wheeler T. A. 2000. Systematics of Mallochianamyia Santos-Neto (Diptera: Schizophora), Neotropical acalyptrate flies of uncertain family relationships. Insect Syst. Evol. 31:209-224.

About This Page

Keith Bayless
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Keith Bayless at

All Rights Reserved.

Citing this page:

Bayless, Keith. 2008. Unplaced Acalyptratae. Version 25 March 2008 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/Unplaced_Acalyptratae/119717/2008.03.25 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/

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