247 articles
List of Asilidae genera
Genera of Asilidae (robber flies): 550+ genera, 7,200+ species of venomous predatory flies; cataloged by Hull 1962, classified into 14 subfamily taxa sensu Dikow 2009, type genus Asilus.
List of Diptera families
Diptera families: the roughly 157 family-level divisions of true flies, from Culicidae and Syrphidae to Tachinidae, organized into lower Diptera, Brachycera, Cyclorrhapha, and Calyptratae, with keys and catalogs.
List of hoverfly species of Great Britain
Hoverfly species of Great Britain: family Syrphidae, about 280-284 British species (Chandler 2012; JNCC 2014). Includes Volucella zonaria, largest at 2 cm; Hoverfly Recording Scheme led by Ball and Morris.
List of mosquito genera
The list of mosquito genera covers the genus-level groupings of the mosquito family Culicidae, with 41 genera in the traditional classification and over 100 under schemes that split Aedes.
List of Pipunculidae species of Great Britain
Pipunculidae of Great Britain, big-headed flies (Diptera): about 93 British species in 14 genera, up from Verrall's 32 in 1901 and Coe's 77 in 1966; larvae parasitize Homoptera.
List of Tachinidae genera
Genera of Tachinidae, the parasitic flies; over 10,000 species in four subfamilies (Exoristinae, Tachininae, Dexiinae, Phasiinae), tracked by the World Genera database, with heavy historical oversplitting especially in the Neotropics.
Lonchaeidae
Lonchaeidae (lance flies) is a family of acalyptrate flies in Tephritoidea, erected by Rondani in 1856, with 611 species in 10 genera worldwide; larvae are saprophagous, zoophagous, or phytophagous, including fruit-crop pests and weevil predators.
Lovebug
Lovebug (Plecia nearctica), a bibionid march fly of Central American origin that spread to the southeastern US by 1949, flying as coupled pairs in May and September swarms and splattering on Gulf Coast highways.
Maggot
Maggot: the soft-bodied, peg-shaped larva of a fly, especially blow flies, flesh flies, and house flies. Feeds with mouth hooks through three instars, forms heat-generating maggot masses, and is central to forensic PMI estimation and maggot debridement therapy.
Maggot therapy
Maggot therapy, or maggot debridement therapy (biosurgery), applies sterile Lucilia sericata larvae to chronic wounds to debride dead tissue, disinfect, and stimulate healing; pioneered by William Baer, FDA-cleared since 2004.
Malaria prophylaxis
Malaria prophylaxis: preventive antimalarial drugs (atovaquone-proguanil, doxycycline, chloroquine, mefloquine, primaquine, tafenoquine) plus mosquito avoidance for travelers, pregnant women, and children; drug choice depends on destination resistance, G6PD status, and pregnancy.
Medetera
Medetera (woodpecker flies) is a large, nearly cosmopolitan genus of long-legged flies (Dolichopodidae) with 355 extant species; larvae prey on bark beetles under bark, making the genus a key natural enemy of forest pests such as Ips typographus.
Melophagus ovinus
Melophagus ovinus, the sheep ked or sheep tick, is a wingless Hippoboscidae fly (Linnaeus 1758) that lives entirely on sheep, gives birth to larvae weekly, causes wool damage, cockle, anemia, and peaks in winter.
Mesocyclops
Mesocyclops is a genus of small predatory copepods established by G. O. Sars in 1914, used as biological control agents against dengue-carrying mosquito larvae, most extensively in Vietnam.
Messel pit
Messel pit (Grube Messel), former oil shale quarry near Darmstadt, Germany; Eocene maar lake deposit (48 Ma) with exceptionally preserved fossils of over 1000 species; Germany's first natural UNESCO World Heritage site (1995).
Microdontinae
Microdontinae is a mainly tropical subfamily of about 454 hoverfly species, commonly called ant flies, whose larvae live inside ant nests and prey on ant brood.
Micropezidae
Micropezidae, the stilt-legged flies, is a family of about 700 slender, long-legged Diptera in Nerioidea, in five subfamilies, worldwide except Antarctica and New Zealand, known for ant and ichneumon wasp mimicry and waving white fore tarsi.
Midge
Midges are small flies of several Diptera families: non-biting Chironomidae (lake flies, bloodworms), biting Ceratopogonidae (no-see-ums, Culicoides disease vectors), and gall midges; also cocoa pollinators and palaeoclimate indicators.
Milichiidae
Milichiidae, jackal or freeloader flies, are a worldwide family of small (1–5 mm) acalyptrate Diptera in Carnoidea, with about 390–430 species, kleptoparasitic and ant-associated behavior, and three subfamilies.
Morphology of Diptera
The morphology of Diptera, the true flies, is the body structure of an order defined by a single wing pair and reduced hindwings called halteres, covering more than 154,000 described species.
Mosquito
A mosquito is a small fly of the family Culicidae whose females take blood meals and transmit diseases that kill about 700,000 people a year.
Mosquito coil
Mosquito coil, a spiral mosquito-repellent incense invented in Japan in 1895 by Eiichiro and Yuki Ueyama; burns pyrethrin smoke for hours, emits PM2.5 equal to 75-137 cigarettes, and lacks proven malaria protection.
Mosquito control
Mosquito control reduces mosquito populations and biting to limit malaria, dengue, Zika, and West Nile transmission. Also called integrated vector management (IVM), it combines source reduction, larvicides, IRS, Wolbachia releases, and resistance monitoring.
Mosquito laser
Mosquito laser: directed-energy insect control, notably Intellectual Ventures' Photonic Fence (proposed 2006 by Lowell Wood, TED 2010 demo) and China's crowdfunded Photon Matrix, which detects flying mosquitoes with LiDAR and AI and kills them with steered laser pulses.
Mosquito Nets
A mosquito net is a lightweight meshwork fabric hung over a bed or crib to protect sleepers from mosquitoes. Insecticide-treated nets are a core WHO-recommended intervention for malaria control.
Mosquito-borne disease
Mosquito-borne disease: illnesses from parasites, viruses, or bacteria transmitted by Anopheles, Aedes, and Culex mosquitoes, including malaria, dengue, chikungunya, Zika, yellow fever, and West Nile; over 700,000 deaths yearly.
Muscidae
Muscidae, the house fly family (house flies, muscid flies), is a species-rich dipteran family of Calyptratae with over 5000 species, defined by loss of female post-abdominal spiracles, radiating 61-41 Ma.
Muscomorpha
Muscomorpha, an infraorder of Brachycera flies (Eremoneura, Cyclorrhapha), includes houseflies, fruit flies, and hoverflies, about 100,000 species, split into Aschiza and Schizophora (Acalyptratae paraphyletic, Calyptratae monophyletic), originating in the Middle Jurassic.
Mycetophilidae
Mycetophilidae, the strict fungus gnats, is a family of nematocerous flies in Diptera, Bibionomorpha, Sciaroidea, with about 4,200 to 5,000 described species in over 200 genera; larvae feed on fungi and dead wood.
Mydidae
Mydidae, the mydas flies, is a family of about 460-470 wasp-mimicking asiloid fly species in 66 genera, sister to Apioceridae and Asilidae, with predatory larvae and Afrotropical diversity centered in Namibia and South Africa.