The Evolution of Blood Feeding and Sponging Diptera
True flies are known to be from the order Diptera. They have two functional wings that helps them to fly and establish easily in any favourable environment. Diptera is known to be one of the largest insect order on earth. They are commonly known to be vectors of disease transmission and also play a major role in pollination process of flowering plants. The insects have significant importance in agriculture and have been present for many centuries on earth thus making it one of the earth’s successful insect order. This research will focus on the adaptive features of blood feeding and sponging Diptera mouthparts. The research will particularly focus on housefly as a sponging mouthpart, horsefly and Tsetse fly as blood sucking mouthparts.
Common Features
According to Upton 1991, Diptera do have the following features:
· They have a pair of transparent wings commonly regarded as membranous wings. They are also referred as flying wings of insects which are easily damaged.
· They have hind wings known as halteres. These wings play a vital role in insect flight as they act as stabilizers. The small club shaped structures of the wings do vibrate thus detecting food source and location of predator.
· There is a variety in mouth-parts believed to be evolved to suit the environment they live in especially the availability of food source. The common mouth-parts are sucking, sponging and piercing as seen in tsetse flies.
· Like many insects, they have compound eyes for easy identification of food source or target prey.
· They usually have short antennae and their bodies may be covered with hairs.
True flies are known to be from the order Diptera. They have two functional wings that helps them to fly and establish easily in any favourable environment. Diptera is known to be one of the largest insect order on earth. They are commonly known to be vectors of disease transmission and also play a major role in pollination process of flowering plants. The insects have significant importance in agriculture and have been present for many centuries on earth thus making it one of the earth’s successful insect order. This research will focus on the adaptive features of blood feeding and sponging Diptera mouthparts. The research will particularly focus on housefly as a sponging mouthpart, horsefly and Tsetse fly as blood sucking mouthparts.
Common Features
According to Upton 1991, Diptera do have the following features:
· They have a pair of transparent wings commonly regarded as membranous wings. They are also referred as flying wings of insects which are easily damaged.
· They have hind wings known as halteres. These wings play a vital role in insect flight as they act as stabilizers. The small club shaped structures of the wings do vibrate thus detecting food source and location of predator.
· There is a variety in mouth-parts believed to be evolved to suit the environment they live in especially the availability of food source. The common mouth-parts are sucking, sponging and piercing as seen in tsetse flies.
· Like many insects, they have compound eyes for easy identification of food source or target prey.
· They usually have short antennae and their bodies may be covered with hairs.