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| Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Diptera |
~Mycetophilidae
Fungus-gnats.
Adult insects. Slender-bodied; stilt-legged. Antennae 8–16 segmented; ‘simple’; not aristate. Ocelli present. Eyes rounded, well separated. The maxillary palps 3–5 segmented; drooping. Posterior division of pronotum without long bristles. Wing veins reaching the margin 5–8 (? - seemingly fewer than 9). Wings without a discal cell; without a sub-apical cell; without a closed anal cell. Sub-costa usually long and ending in the costa. The leading edge veins markedly stronger than the rest (?). Media and cubitus veins connected via a cross vein or by a fusion. Media vein with a distinct basal section. Media-cubitus and radius-media cross-veins both present, almost in one line. M-cu well before r-m. Wings with the lower calypter much reduced or absent. Tibiae apically spurred. Feet without a triple pad. Abdomen constricted basally.
Larvae and pupae. The larvae terrestrial; mycophagous; eucephalic. The pupae without a puparium.
Classification. Suborder Nematocera; Division Bibionomorpha; Superfamily Sciaroidea.
British representation. 16 species in Britain. Genera 1; Bolitophila.
Illustrations. • Bolitophila saundersii Curtis: B. Ent. 581. • Bolitophila saundersii Curtis: B. Ent. 581, legend+text. • Bolitophila saundersii Curtis: B. Ent. 581, text cont.. • Bolitophila (from Walker). 7, Bolitophila hybrida (female), and detail of its antenna (7a). 7b, Bolitophila cinerea, head from above. From Walker (1876, Plate XXIII), with 2mm scale added. • Bolitophila cinerea: Stephens 1846. • Mycetophila ornata: Stephens 1846.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Diptera. Version: 14th April 2022. delta-intkey.com’.
