Skip to content
EntityQ301085· pop 17· linked from 214 articles

Nycteribiidae

Sign in to save

Nycteribiidae is a family of the true fly superfamily Hippoboscoidea. Together with their close relatives the Streblidae, they are known as "bat flies". As the latter do not seem to be a monophyletic group, it is conceivable that bat flies cannot be united into a single family.

Species

FAMILY

  1. KingdomAnimalia
  2. PhylumArthropoda
  3. ClassInsecta
  4. OrderDiptera
  5. FamilyNycteribiidae
Observations recorded211

via GBIF

Museum specimens

Specimen records
104
Family
Nycteribiidae
Collections
MSB, FMNH, INHS, AM, LACM
Recorded in
United States, Panama, Iran, Brazil, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Australia

Wikidata facts

Instance of
taxon
Parent taxon
Hippoboscoidea
Image
Britishentomologyvolume8Plate277.jpg
Show 5 more facts
Commons category
Nycteribiidae
taxon rank
family
taxon name
Nycteribiidae
topic's main category
Category:Nycteribiidae
taxon common name
flaggermusfluer
Sources (1)

via Wikidata · CC0

~2 min read

Encyclopedic overview

5 sections
Contents
  • General
  • Morphology
  • References
  • Further reading
  • External links

Nycteribiidae is a family of the true fly superfamily Hippoboscoidea. Together with their close relatives the Streblidae, they are known as "bat flies". As the latter do not seem to be a monophyletic group, it is conceivable that bat flies cannot be united into a single family.

They are flattened, spiderlike flies without eyes or wings, and as such bear very little resemblance to other Dipterans. These flies are seldom encountered by general collectors, as they rarely leave the body of their hosts. Female bat flies often must leave their hosts to breed and lay eggs, however, they will not leave their bats immediate habitat. Both males and females take blood meals, thus qualifying as parasites. Most species are highly host-specific. The family is primarily found in the Old World tropics; a few of the 274 known species occur in the Neotropics and Europe.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Nycteribiidae” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.