West Virginia Lauxaniid Flies
Family Lauxaniidae
These small flies are often robust. Their wings in many cases have a yellow tinge, and sometimes boast dark spots. The head is "nearly twice as wide as long, in profile more or less oval, higher than long." The postocellar bristles converge. Usually the tibiae have "preapical dorsal seta" though this is occasionally lacking on the rear tibiae. The abdomen appears soft and plump (Shewell, in McAlpine, 1987).
Females are oviparous. The larvae are white, at least partly translucent, and in shape "cylindroconical." The pupae are "usually covered with calcereous deposit expelled as liquid from larval anus" at the time of pupation (Shewell, in McAlpine, 1987).
Oldroyd (1964) reports that the larvae develop in leaf mold and other decaying plant material. Some more specialized species have leaf-miner or gall-maker larvae. In some species the larvae develop in bird nests.
Shewell notes that Lauxaniid flies are found on all the continents save Antarctica, and that many Pacific islands are home to species found nowhere else on earth (Shewell, in McAlpine, 1987). Unfortunately for those of us who try to understand Dipteran taxonomy, Shewell quotes Stuckenberg as saying "the Neotropical fauna has little in common with that of the Old World."
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Insects of West Virginia