Nannochoristidae

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Nannochoristidae
Temporal range: Kungurian–Recent
Scientific classification e
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Mecoptera
Family: Nannochoristidae
Tillyard, 1917
Genera

Nannochoristidae is a family of scorpionflies with many unusual traits. It is a tiny, relict family of about eight species, with members occurring in New Zealand, southeastern Australia, Tasmania, and Chile. Due to the groups distinctiveness from other scorpionflies, it is sometimes placed in its own order, the Nannomecoptera. The adults look like scorpionflies with more pointed, elongated wings. Most mecopteran larvae are eruciform, or shaped like caterpillars. Nannochoristid larvae, however, are , or shaped like wireworm or click beetle larvae. They are also the only entirely aquatic Mecoptera. Wing venation suggests a close relationship to dipterans. They are predatory, primarily on the larvae of aquatic Diptera.

Fossils indicate that Nannochoristidae formerly had a wider distribution in the Northern Hemisphere during the Jurassic and Cretaceous.[1] The oldest reported fossils attributed to the family are those of from the Early Permian (Kungurian) of South Africa.[2]

Some research suggests the nannochoristids are the only holometabolous insects with true larval compound eyes .[3] All other eyed larvae have stemmata, which are structurally different from adult compound eyes with ommatidia. This is unusual, since most adult features are present as imaginal discs in larvae and not formed until pupation. The presence of compound eyes in nannochoristid larvae suggests the timing of the development of adult features can be initiated earlier in development, which has important implications for insect evolutionary development.

Phylogeny[]

The cladogram of external relationships, based on a 2008 DNA and protein analysis, shows the family as a clade, sister to the Siphonaptera (fleas) and rest of Mecoptera, and more distantly related to the Diptera (true flies) and Mecoptera (scorpionflies).[4][5][6][7]

Panorpida
Antliophora
 

Diptera (true flies) Common house fly, Musca domestica.jpg

 
 

Nannochoristidae

 
 
 

Mecoptera (scorpionflies, hangingflies) (exc. Boreidae & Nannochoristidae)

Gunzesrieder Tal Insekt 3.jpg

 
 
 

Boreidae (snow scorpionflies) Boreus hiemalis2 detail.jpg

 
 

Siphonaptera (fleas) British Entomologycutted Plate114.png

 
 
 
 
 
Amphiesmenoptera
 

Trichoptera (caddisflies) Sericostoma.personatum.jpg

 
 

Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) Tyria jacobaeae-lo.jpg

 
 
 
 

Hymenoptera (sawflies, wasps, ants, bees) AD2009Sep09 Vespula germanica 03.jpg

 
(part of Endopterygota)

A more recent study in 2021 found Nannochoristidae to be the sister group to fleas, with strong support.[8]

Antliophora
 

Diptera (true flies) Common house fly, Musca domestica.jpg

 
 
 

Boreidae (snow scorpionflies, 30 spp.) Boreus hiemalis2 detail.jpg

 
 
 
 

Nannochoristidae (southern scorpionflies, 8 spp.)

 
 

Siphonaptera (fleas, 2500 spp.) British Entomologycutted Plate114.png

 
 
 

Pistillifera (scorpionflies, hangingflies, 400 spp.) Gunzesrieder Tal Insekt 3.jpg

 
 
 
 

Genera[]

This list is adapted from the World Checklist of extant Mecoptera species[9] and is complete as of 1997.

  • Byers, 1974 (one species: New Zealand)
  • Tillyard, 1917 (six species: Argentina, Chile, Tasmania, Australia) Koonwarra fossil bed, Australia, Early Cretaceous (Aptian)
  • † Sukatsheva 1985 (one species: , Russia, Late Jurassic (Oxfordian)
  • † Sukatsheva 1985 (one species: Ichetuy Formation, Oxfordian, Russia)
  • † Sukatsheva 1985 (12 species) Itat Formation, Russia, Middle Jurassic (Bathonian), Daohugou, China, Middle Jurassic (Callovian), Karabastau Formation, Kazakhstan, Late Jurassic (Oxfordian) , Russia, Early Cretaceous (Barremian)
  • † Sukacheva 1993 Khaya Formation, Russia, Tithonian
  • † Pinto and de Ornellas 1978 Whitehill Formation, South Africa, Early Permian (Kungurian)

References[]

  1. ^ LIU, NAN; Zhao, Yunyun; REN, DONG (2010-04-07). "Two new fossil species of Itaphlebia (Mecoptera: Nannochoristidae) from Jiulongshan Formation, Inner Mongolia, China". Zootaxa. 2420 (1): 37. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.2420.1.3. ISSN 1175-5334.
  2. ^ PINTO, IRAJÁ DAMIANI; DE ORNELLAS, LILIA PINTO (1978-06-30). "New Fossil Insects From the White and Band Formation (Permian), South Africa". Pesquisas em Geociências. 10 (10): 96. doi:10.22456/1807-9806.21778. ISSN 1807-9806.
  3. ^ Melzer, R. R.; H. F. Paulus & N. P. Kristensen (1994). "The larval eye of nannochoristid scorpionflies (Insecta, Mecoptera)". Acta Zoologica. 75 (3): 201–208. doi:10.1111/j.1463-6395.1994.tb01207.x.
  4. ^ Whiting, Michael F.; Whiting, Alison S.; Hastriter, Michael W.; Dittmar, Katharina (2008). "A molecular phylogeny of fleas (Insecta: Siphonaptera): origins and host associations". Cladistics. 24 (5): 677–707. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.731.5211. doi:10.1111/j.1096-0031.2008.00211.x.
  5. ^ Yeates, David K.; Wiegmann, Brian. "Endopterygota Insects with complete metamorphosis". Tree of Life. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  6. ^ Whiting, Michael F. (2002). "Mecoptera is paraphyletic: multiple genes and phylogeny of Mecoptera and Siphonaptera". Zoologica Scripta. 31 (1): 93–104. doi:10.1046/j.0300-3256.2001.00095.x. Archived from the original on 2013-01-05.
  7. ^ Wiegmann, Brian; Yeates, David K. (2012). The Evolutionary Biology of Flies. Columbia University Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-231-50170-5.
  8. ^ Tihelka, Erik; Giacomelli, Mattia; Huang, Di-Ying; Pisani, Davide; Donoghue, Philip C. J.; Cai, Chen-Yang (2020-12-21). "Fleas are parasitic scorpionflies". Palaeoentomology. 3 (6): 641–653–641–653. doi:10.11646/palaeoentomology.3.6.16. hdl:1983/8d3c12c6-529c-4754-b59d-3abf88a32fc9. ISSN 2624-2834. S2CID 234423213.
  9. ^ World Checklist of extant Mecoptera species Nannochoristidae
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