Nannochoristidae

Nannochoristidae
Nannochoristidae
Scientific classification e
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Mecoptera
Family: Nannochoristidae
Tillyard, 1917
Genera
  • Microchorista
  • Nannochorista

Nannochoristidae is a primitive family of scorpionflies that have many unusual traits. It is a tiny, relict family of about eight species, with members of the genus Nannochorista occurring in New Zealand, southeastern Australia, Tasmania, and Chile and thus probably of Gondwanan origin. The adults look like scorpionflies with more pointed elongate wings. Most mecopteran larvae are eruciform, or shaped like caterpillars. Nannochoristid larvae, however, are elateriform, or shaped like a wireworm or click beetle larva. 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.

Some research suggests that nannochoristids are the only holometabolous insects that have true larval compound eyes [1]. 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 suggest that the timing of the development of adult features can be initiated earlier in development, which has startling implications for insect evolutionary development.

Genera

This list is adapted from the World Checklist of extant Mecoptera species[2] and is complete as of 1997.

  • Microchorista Byers, 1974 (1 species: New Zealand)
  • Nannochorista Tillyard, 1917 (6 species: Argentina, Chile, Tasmania, Australia)

References

  1. ^ Melzer, R. R., H. F. Paulus, & N. P. Kristensen (1994). "The larval eye of nannochoristid scorpionflies (Insecta, Mecoptera)". Acta Zoologica 75 (3): 201. doi:10.1111/j.1463-6395.1994.tb01207.x. 
  2. ^ World Checklist of extant Mecoptera species Nannochoristidae
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