''Cascoplecia insolitis'', rarely known as the unicorn fly, is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

dipteran Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced ...

that lived in the

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous ( geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphic name), is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 145 Ma to 100.5 Ma. Geology Pro ...

. The

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wiktionary:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to a ...

was found in

Burmese amber Burmese amber, also known as Burmite or Kachin amber, is amber from the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar. The amber is dated to around 100 million years ago, during the latest Albian to earliest Cenomanian ages of the mid-Cretaceous period. The ...

George Poinar Jr. George O. Poinar Jr. (born April 25, 1936) is an American entomologist and writer. He is known for popularizing the idea of extracting DNA from insects fossilized in amber, an idea which received widespread attention when adapted by Michael Cr ...

, who described the fossil, placed the genus into a new family Cascopleciidae. One of the defining characteristics of ''Cascoplecia'' is the presence of three ocelli raised on an extended, horn-like protuberance. The distinctiveness of the family was questioned by other authors, and the genus has been subsequently transferred to the family

Bibionidae Bibionidae (March flies) is a family of flies (Diptera) containing approximately 650–700 species worldwide. Adults are nectar feeders and emerge in numbers in spring. Because of the likelihood of adults flies being found ''in copula'', they h ...

.Thomas Pape, Vladimir Blagoderov & Mikhail B. Mostovski. 201
Order DIPTERA Linnaeus, 1758.
In: Zhang, Z.-Q. (Ed.) Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness. left, reconstruction

References

Bibionomorpha genera Fossil taxa described in 2010 Cretaceous insects of Asia Burmese amber Fossils of Myanmar † Taxa named by George Poinar Jr. {{diptera-stub