Acroceridae
Taxonomy
This page represents the following TreeOfLife-200M taxonomic path.[1]
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Arthropoda
- Class: Insecta
- Order: Diptera
- Family: Acroceridae
Visual Description
Acroceridae, commonly known as spider flies, exhibit a highly distinctive morphology characterized by a small head and a disproportionately large, often globose or humpbacked thorax and abdomen.[2] Observations of specimens in the TreeOfLife-200M dataset reveal significant variation in body form across genera. Many species, such as those in the genus Eulonchus, possess a robust, often metallic-colored body with a notably elongated proboscis, while others like Acrocera display a more compact, rounded, and hunchbacked appearance.[1] The head is typically very small relative to the body, often appearing tucked beneath the thorax.[2]
Biology and Diversity
Acroceridae are specialized parasitoids of spiders.[3] The family is globally distributed and includes a diverse range of species.[4] Taxonomic research in the Neotropical region has identified significant diversity, with 19 genera and approximately 100 species documented, including recent descriptions of new genera such as Neophilopota and Coquena.[5]
Gallery
References
- 1 2 Dataset view for Animalia / Arthropoda / Insecta / Diptera / Acroceridae constructed from imageomics/TreeOfLife-200M records under this taxonomic path. Hugging Face Datasets. https://huggingface.co/datasets/imageomics/TreeOfLife-200M.
- 1 2 Acroceridae. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acroceridae. Accessed 2026-07-14.
- ↑ Acroceridae. Global Biotic Interactions. https://www.globalbioticinteractions.org/?targetTaxon=Acroceridae. Accessed 2026-07-14.
- ↑ Acroceridae. GBIF. https://www.gbif.org/species/3328. Accessed 2026-07-13.
- ↑ Christopher J. Borkent; Evert I. Schlinger; Jéssica Gillung. New spider flies from the Neotropical Region (Diptera, Acroceridae) with a key to New World genera. ZooKeys. 2013. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.270.4476.