Family PSYCHODIDAE Newman, 1834

Psychodidae

Museums

Museum list

Regional Maps

Family PSYCHODIDAE Newman, 1834

Compiler and date details

April 2011 - Kathleen Nugent & Christine Lambkin, Queensland Museum

1999 - E.-M.E. Bugledich, CSIRO Entomology, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

Introduction

The Psychodidae is one of the more species-rich families of the Nematocera, with several thousand species worldwide. Although showing quite a diversity of body shapes, they are amongst the most easily recognised of nematocerans by virtue of the dense hairs covering the body and wings, hence the common name 'moth flies'. The broad wings are characteristic, with a reduced anal area, most longitudinal veins strongly developed, and costa running around the margins. The wings are are held either roof-like or flat over the back. Further identificatory features include the presence of special sensilla (ascoids) on each antennal flagellomere. Movement is characteristically jerky.

Some authors have elevated the medically significant Phlebotominae to family status, but the decision would render the remainder of the Psychodidae paraphyletic, and therefore phylogenetically is unwarranted.
The adult females of Phlebotominae, known in some parts of the world as 'sand flies', take a blood meal from vertebrate hosts. Elsewhere, especially in the non-Australian tropics and subtropics, phlebotomines may be vectors of the protozoan parasitic disease leishmaniasis.

Larval Psychodidae can be distinguished by the subdivision of each segment, with each subdivision dorsally sclerotised. In the subfamily Psychodinae, the larvae are often semi-aquatic and the abdomen generally ends in a tubular siphon, with spiracles borne at the apex. Fringes of hairsaround the spiracles may allow the larva to stay at the surface in anoxic habitats. Duckhouse (1995) presented a revised larval chaetotaxic terminology.
Other psychodid larvae are semi-terrestrial occurring in moist habitats, or in rotting wood (subfamily Trichomyiinae), compost, leaf litter, phytotelmata etc. Those that are aquatic tend to be either hygropetric and/or tolerant of eutrophication/anoxia. After heavy rain, riparian species may be washed into the adjacent aquatic habitat. Few life histories are known from Australia.

Types designated by D.A. Duckhouse and listed here as 'not found' in the ANIC are still in the care of D.A. Duckhouse pending further work and final dispatch to the ANIC.