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educational purposes only] Glossary <Principal Natural Enemy Groups> <Citations> <Home> |
DIPTERA, Cecidomyiidae (Macquart 1838) -- <Images>
& <Juveniles> Please refer also
to the following link for details on this group: Cecidomyiidae: Link
1 Description & Statistics Cecidomyiidae (sometimes
spelled Cecidomyidae) is a family of flies (Order Diptera) known as gall
midges or gall gnats. Most gall
midges feed within plant tissue, creating abnormal plant growths called
galls. These are very delicate
small insects usually only 2-3 mm in length and many are less than 1 mm long.
They are characterised by hairy wings, unusual in the Order Diptera, and have
long antennae. Worldwide there are 3000+ species but since 1,100 are from
well-studied North America this may be an underestimate. Many are
economically significant especially the important insect pest of wheat, the
Hessian fly, the galls causing severe damage to the crop. Other important
pests include the lentil flower midge (Contarinia lentis), the lucerne
flower midge (C. medicaginis) and the alfalfa sprout midge (Dasineura
ignorata) on the Leguminosae; the Swede midge (Contarinia nasturtii)
and the brassica pod midge (Dasineura brassicae) on the Cruciferae;
the pear midge (Contarinia pyrivora) the raspberry cane midge (Resseliella
theobaldi) on fruit crops; and the rosette gall midge (Rhopalomyia
solidaginis) on goldenrod stalks. Many species are natural
enemies of other crop pests. The larvae of these species are predaceous, and
some are even reported as parasitoids. The most common prey are aphids and
spider mites, followed by scale insects , then other small prey such as
whiteflies and thrips and many eat the eggs of other insects or mites.
Because the tiny larva are incapable of moving considerable distances, there
usually has to be a substantial population of prey present before the adults
will lay eggs and Cecidiomyiidae are most frequently be seen during pest
outbreaks. One species Aphidoletes aphidomyza is an important
component of biological control programs for greenhouse crops and is widely
sold in the United States of America. Cecidomyiidae are also
known for the strange phenomenon of paedogenesis in which larvae are able
to reproduces without maturing first.
In some species the daughter larvae are even produced within a mother larva ,
and they consume the mother and in other species reproduction occurs in the
egg or pupa. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = References: Please refer to <biology.ref.htm>, [Additional references
may be found at: MELVYL
Library] Barnes, H. F.
1929. Bull. Ent. Res. 20: 433-42. Cole, F.
R. 1969.
The Flies of Western North America.
Univ. Calif. Press, Berkeley & Los Angeles. 693 p. Fedotova, Z.
A. & E. E. Perkovsky. 2009: New
gall midges of the tribe Leptosynini (Diptera, Cecidomyiidae) from the Late
Eocene ambers and the classification of the supertribe Heteropezidi. Paleontological
journal, 43(9): 1101-1147. Felt, E. P.
1940. Plant and Gall
Makers. Comstock Publ. Co., Ithaca,
NY. 364 p. Gagne, R.
J. 2004: A catalog of the
Cecidomyiidae (Diptera) of the world. Memoirs of the Entomological Society
of Washington, 25 Heong, KL, YH
Chen, DE Johnson, GC Jahn, M Hossain, RS Hamilton. 2005. Debate Over a GM
Rice Trial in China. Letters. Science, Vol 310, Issue 5746, 231-233 , 14
October 2005. Huang, J.,
Ruifa Hu, Scott Rozelle, Carl Pray. 2005. Insect-Resistant GM Rice in
Farmers' Fields: Assessing Productivity and Health Effects in China. Science
(29 April 2005) Vol. 308. no. 5722, pp. 688 – 690 Jahn, GC and
B. Khiev. 2004. Gall midge in Cambodian lowland rice. pp. 71-76. In: J.
Benett, JS Bentur, IC Pasula, K. Krishnaiah, [eds]. New approaches to gall
midge resistance in rice. Proceedings of the International Workshop, 22-24
November 1998, Hyderabad, India. Los Baños (Philippines): International Rice
Research Institute and Indian Council of Agricultural Research. 195 p. Kocak, A. O.
& M. Kemal. 2010: Nomenclatural notes on the genus group names of
the order Diptera. Centre for Entomological Studies Ankara miscellaneous
papers, 151: 5-7. Maia, V. C.
2010: A new replacement name for Brethesia Maia (Diptera,
Cecidomyiidae). Revista brasileira de entomologia, 54(1): 146. Maia, V. C.,
G. W. Fernandes & D. Negreiros.
2009: A new genus and species of gall midge (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae)
associated with Myrcia retorta (Myrtaceae). Revista brasileira de entomologia, 53(1): 38–40. Prichard, A. E. 1951. Univ. Calif.
Publ. Ent. 8: 239-75. Prichard, A. E. 1953. Calif. Insect
Surv. Bull. 2: 125-50. Sato, S. &
J. Yukawa. 2009: Descriptions of two
new Mikiola species (Diptera:
Cecidomyiidae) that induce leaf galls on Fagus crenata (Fagaceae) in Japan. Studia
dipterologica 15 (1/2): 151-164. |