Oestroidea is a

superfamily SUPERFAMILY is a database and search platform of structural and functional annotation for all proteins and genomes. It classifies amino acid sequences into known structural domains, especially into SCOP superfamilies. Domains are functional, str ...

Calyptratae Calyptratae is a subsection of Schizophora in the insect order Diptera, commonly referred to as the calyptrate muscoids (or simply calyptrates). It consists of those flies which possess a calypter that covers the halteres, among which are som ...

including the

blow flies The Calliphoridae (commonly known as blow flies, blow-flies, carrion flies, bluebottles, greenbottles, or cluster flies) are a family of insects in the order Diptera, with almost 1,900 known species. The maggot larvae, often used as fishing b ...

bot flies Botflies, also known as warble flies, heel flies, and gadflies, are a family of flies known as the Oestridae. Their larvae are internal parasites of mammals, some species growing in the host's flesh and others within the gut. ''Dermatobia homin ...

flesh flies Sarcophagidae () are a family of flies commonly known as flesh flies. They differ from most flies in that they are ovoviviparous, opportunistically depositing hatched or hatching maggots instead of eggs on carrion, dung, decaying material, or o ...

, and their relatives. It occurs worldwide and has about 15,000 described species. The superfamily includes the families: *

Calliphoridae The Calliphoridae (commonly known as blow flies, blow-flies, carrion flies, bluebottles, greenbottles, or cluster flies) are a family of insects in the order Diptera, with almost 1,900 known species. The maggot larvae, often used as fishing ba ...

Mesembrinellidae Mesembrinellidae is a family of Neotropical flies in the order Diptera, and formerly included in the Calliphoridae. There are 36 described species. Taxonomy *Subfamily Laneellinae Guimarães, 1977 :*''Laneella'' Mello, 1967 ::*'' L. nigripes'' G ...

(formerly included in Calliphoridae) *

Mystacinobiidae The New Zealand bat fly (''Mystacinobia zelandica'') is a small, wingless insect which lives in a commensal relationship with the New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat. It is a true fly, in the order Diptera, placed in its own genus, ''Mystacinobia ...

Oestridae Botflies, also known as warble flies, heel flies, and gadflies, are a family of flies known as the Oestridae. Their larvae are internal parasites of mammals, some species growing in the host's flesh and others within the gut. ''Dermatobia homin ...

Polleniidae Polleniidae is a family of flies in the order Diptera. There are at least 6 genera and more than 190 described species placed definitively in Polleniidae, and other genera whose placement here is considered uncertain. The largest genus is '' Pol ...

(formerly included in Calliphoridae) * Rhiniidae (formerly included in Calliphoridae) *

Rhinophoridae Rhinophoridae is a family of flies (Diptera), commonly known as Woodlouse Flies, found in all zoogeographic regions except Oceania, but mainly in the Palaearctic and Afrotropical regions. They are small, slender, black, bristly flies phylog ...

Sarcophagidae Sarcophagidae () are a family of flies commonly known as flesh flies. They differ from most flies in that they are ovoviviparous, opportunistically depositing hatched or hatching maggots instead of eggs on carrion, dung, decaying material, or op ...

Tachinidae The Tachinidae are a large and variable family of true flies within the insect order Diptera, with more than 8,200 known species and many more to be discovered. Over 1,300 species have been described in North America alone. Insects in this family ...

Ulurumyiidae ''Ulurumyia macalpinei'' is a species of fly in the superfamily Oestroidea endemic to Australia. It was first discovered in the 1970s, but was not described until 2017, and in the intervening decades was informally known to entomologists as McAlp ...

Ecology

Oestroidea have a wide range of feeding habits and breeding environments:

saprophagous Saprotrophic nutrition or lysotrophic nutrition is a process of chemoheterotrophic extracellular digestion involved in the processing of decayed (dead or waste) organic matter. It occurs in saprotrophs, and is most often associated with fungi ( ...

(many Calliphoridae and Sarcophagidae), feeding on blood of birds or mammals (some Calliphoridae),

parasites Parasitism is a Symbiosis, close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the Host (biology), host, causing it some harm, and is Adaptation, adapted structurally to this way of lif ...

of gastropods or earthworms (some Calliphoridae),

parasitoids In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionary strategies within parasi ...

of arthropods (Rhinophoridae, Tachinidae and some Sarcophagidae), living in association with termites or ants (some Calliphoridae and Rhiniidae), and commensals of bats (Mystacinobiidae). Various species of Calliphoridae, Oestridae and Sarcophagidae have larvae that parasitise vertebrates, causing

myiasis Myiasis is the parasitic infestation of the body of a live animal by fly larvae (maggots) which grow inside the host while feeding on its tissue. Although flies are most commonly attracted to open wounds and urine- or feces-soaked fur, some spec ...

Phylogeny

Historically, Oestroidea was considered the

sister group In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and t ...

Muscoidea Muscoidea is a superfamily of flies in the subsection Calyptratae. Muscoidea, with approximately 7000 described species, is nearly 5% of the known species level diversity of the Diptera, the true flies. Most muscoid flies are saprophagous, coprop ...

. A 2012 molecular analysis placed the superfamily within a paraphyletic Muscoidea, and also confirmed the

monophyly In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic grou ...

of Oestroidea and of most of its families (except Calliphoridae). Morphological and molecular analyses in 2017 yielded overall similar results. Relationships among the families and subfamilies within Oestroidea are complicated and not well resolved.

Evolution

The earliest known fossil of Oestroidea is of a Mesembrinellidae found in

Dominican amber Dominican amber is amber from the Dominican Republic derived from resin of the extinct tree ''Hymenaea protera''. Dominican amber differentiates itself from Baltic amber by being nearly always transparent, and it has a higher number of fossil incl ...

from the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

. The Oestroidea in general are believed to have originated 48.2 million years ago.

Forensic entomology

Many species of Oestroidea are of forensic importance due to feeding on decomposing animals, including humans.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1617275 Diptera superfamilies