247 articles
Sciomyzidae
Sciomyzidae, marsh or snail-killing flies, is a worldwide acalyptrate Diptera family of roughly 546-600 species whose larvae are almost uniquely malacophagous, feeding on snails and slugs, serving as wetland bioindicators and biocontrol agents against schistosomiasis and fascioliasis vector snails.
Sex peptide
Sex peptide (SP, Acp70A) is a 36-amino-acid Drosophila melanogaster male accessory gland peptide transferred at mating; it reduces female receptivity, raises egg laying, binds sperm for gradual release, and acts via the SPR receptor.
Simuliidae
Simuliidae, commonly called black flies or buffalo gnats, is a family of small blood-feeding flies whose larvae develop in flowing freshwater; females transmit river blindness.
Skeeter syndrome
Skeeter syndrome, also called a large local mosquito bite reaction, is an IgE- and IgG-mediated allergic reaction to mosquito saliva causing large red, swollen, itchy lesions within hours, mimicking cellulitis, most common in young atopic children, resolving in 3-10 days.
Sphaeroceridae
Sphaeroceridae (lesser dung flies, small dung flies) is a family of acalyptrate Diptera, 1-6 mm, with a swollen hind basitarsus; saprophagous flies of dung and decaying matter, about 1,550-plus described species worldwide.
Stalk-eyed fly
Stalk-eyed flies are flies of the family Diopsidae whose eyes, and uniquely the antennae, sit on long head stalks that can exceed body length in males.
Strashilidae
Strashilidae (type genus Strashila, species S. daohugouensis) are extinct Middle Jurassic flies from Daohugou, Inner Mongolia, once thought to be feather-grasping dinosaur ectoparasites but reinterpreted in 2013 as amphibious, paedomorphic dipterans related to Nymphomyiidae.
Stratiomyidae
Stratiomyidae (soldier flies) is a cosmopolitan family of lower Brachycera flies with 375 genera and over 2,800 species in 12 subfamilies; larvae are aquatic or decomposer scavengers, and Hermetia illucens is farmed for waste bioconversion.
Syrphidae
Syrphidae, commonly called hoverflies or flower flies, is a large family of flies whose adults often hover motionless and whose larvae range from aphid predators to saprophages.
Tabanidae
Tabanidae, the horse fly and deer fly family (also clegs, march flies), is the most species-rich bloodsucking fly family, about 4455 species; females bite painfully and mechanically vector anthrax, surra, and Loa loa.
Tachinidae
Tachinidae, the bristle flies, is a large family of flies whose larvae parasitize and kill other insects, mostly caterpillars, and is used as biological control against pests like the gypsy moth.
Tanyderidae
Tanyderidae, the primitive crane flies, is a small nematocerous fly family with 38 extant species in 10 genera, patterned plesiomorphic wings, aquatic stream larvae, and a fossil record from the Lower Jurassic of Eurasia.
Tanytarsus
Tanytarsus is a large genus of non-biting midges with about 355 species, whose larvae live in freshwater and whose remains in lake sediments are widely used to reconstruct past temperatures and oxygen conditions.
Target Malaria
Target Malaria is a nonprofit research consortium developing gene drive mosquitoes to suppress malaria-transmitting populations, with field work in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Uganda, funded by the Gates Foundation and Open Philanthropy.
Teleopsis dalmanni
Teleopsis dalmanni, formerly Cyrtodiopsis dalmanni, is a stalk-eyed fly native to Southeast Asia, often called the Malaysian stalk-eyed fly, studied as a laboratory model for sexual selection.
Tephritidae
Tephritidae, the true fruit flies (also called Trypetidae), is a family of Diptera with roughly 4,300–4,900 species in about 500 genera; about 250 species are major horticultural pests, notably Bactrocera, Ceratitis, and Anastrepha.
Therevidae
Therevidae, the stiletto flies, is a family of asiloid brachyceran Diptera with over 1,170 species in about 128 genera, sister to Scenopinidae, with predatory sand-burrowing larvae and subfamilies Phycinae, Xestomyzinae, Agapophytinae, and Therevinae.
Tipula
Tipula is the largest genus of crane flies (family Tipulidae), established by Linnaeus in 1758, with 41 subgenera worldwide; adults are large long-legged flies and larvae (leatherjackets) are turf and crop pests such as Tipula paludosa.
Tipulidae
Tipulidae (crane flies, daddy longlegs) is a family of long-legged true flies in Diptera, historically including all Tipuloidea; about 15,000 species, larvae called leatherjackets, pests include Tipula paludosa and T. oleracea.
Toxorhynchites
Toxorhynchites (elephant mosquitoes), genus of the largest mosquitoes (up to 13 mm), non-blood-feeding nectar drinkers whose predatory larvae eat up to 5000 mosquito larvae; 102 species in four subgenera, used as biocontrol against Aedes vectors.
Trypanosomiasis transmission by tsetse flies
Trypanosomiasis transmission by tsetse flies is the cyclical passage of Trypanosoma parasites through the fly, taking one to three weeks before the fly becomes infective for life.
Tsetse anatomy and physiology
Tsetse anatomy and physiology describes the blood-feeding tsetse fly (Glossina spp.), whose chainsaw-like proboscis, blood digestion, and Wigglesworthia symbiont supply B vitamins that blood alone lacks.
Tsetse fly
Tsetse flies (genus Glossina) are blood-feeding insects found only in Africa that serve as the sole vectors of African trypanosomes, influencing food production and settlement patterns across sub-Saharan Africa.
Tsetse fly control and eradication
Tsetse fly control and eradication covers measures used to suppress or eliminate tsetse flies, including insecticide-treated targets, treated cattle, aerial spraying, and the sterile insect technique.
Udaya
Udaya (Compressed Mosquito) is a genus of three Oriental-region mosquito species in tribe Aedini, type species Ud. argyrurus, named by Thurman in 1954 for Dr. Udaya Sandhinand.
Ulidiidae
Ulidiidae, picture-winged flies (formerly Otitidae), are a Tephritoidea fly family of about 800 species, 2-13 mm, mostly saprophagous larvae, two subfamilies Ulidiinae and Otitinae, some crop pests.
Uranotaenia
Uranotaenia (Heaven Mosquito) is a genus of small culicine mosquitoes, sole genus of tribe Uranotaeniini, with about 276 species in subgenera Pseudoficalbia and Uranotaenia; Ur. sapphirina uniquely feeds on annelids.
Vector control
Vector control limits transmission of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue by managing mosquito populations through WHO's integrated vector management framework, using ITNs, IRS, larval source management, surveillance, and resistance management.
Vermileonidae
Vermileonidae, wormlion flies, a small brachyceran fly family (Diptera) whose larvae dig conical pitfall traps like antlions; about 60-66 species in 11-12 genera, mostly Afrotropical and arid Old World, placed in Tabanomorpha.
Warble fly
Warble fly, genus Hypoderma (H. bovis, H. lineatum), Oestridae botflies whose larvae migrate through cattle for about 10 months and form breathing-holed warbles on the back; controlled by macrocyclic lactones and eradicated in much of Europe and North America.