Chloropidae
Classification
BRACHYCERA, Muscomorpha Schizophora Acalyptratae, Carnoidea
Number of British species: 177
Size: T-S
Difficulty: 2-4 Panel
Characters
Minute to medium sized (1-5mm, sometimes up to 8 mm), stout to slender flies, usually with a conspicuously large ocellar triangle and few bristles. Often yellowish or greenish with black brown or red markings; sometimes body entirely or in part shining black or dusted grey. Arista bare to pubescent, the arista itself sometimes enlarged; ocelli present; Ocellar bristles present or reduced; Postvertical bristles parallel, converging or reduced; frontal bristles usually reduced, sometimes several forward, outward, or backward curved pairs present; dorsal region of head usually closely packed with smaller setulae; vibrissae present in some cases, usually reduced or absent. Proepisternum with a sharp anterior carina. Wing generally clear, in only a few species with a pattern; costa virtually always with a subcostal break; vein Sc incomplete; crossvein BM-Cu absent; vein CuA1 usually with a flexure halfway cell bm + dm; often vein R4+5and sometimes also vein M1 curving toward the costa; cell cup open or absent. Tibiae without dorsal preapical bristle.
Biology
The larvae of the Chloropidae generally feed on living plant or animal tissues or on dead organic matter (insect frass, rotting plant material, mushrooms and bracket fungi, carrion, nests of birds etc.). Some feed on root aphids or on eggs of spiders and grasshoppers. Some woodland species live in decaying wood or below the bark of trees. Larvae feeding on vegetable material prefer the stems and flowers of grasses, reeds and sedges where they may cause galls; a number of these gall-forming species can cause damage to agriculture. The adults are encountered chiefly in open habitats such as meadows and marshland, although some species are typical of woodland. Several species visit flowers; from late summer onward Thaumatomyia notata (Meigen) may occur indoors, where it seeks refuge for the winter.
