The True Flies, Diptera, are one of the most successful groups of insects, with around 240 000 described species and a fossil record that dates back to the Triassic. They can be distinguished from other Insects with 'fly' in their names by only having a single pair of wings, the forewings, the hindwings having been reduced to a pair of halteres, which act as gyroscopes during flight. Only the adult Fly has wings; Flies undergo a complete metamorphosis on reaching maturity, the larvae being a worm-like caterpillar.
In a paper published in the journal ZooKeys on 6 November 2012, Junfeng Zhang of the College of Palaeontology at Shenyang Normal University and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences describes a new species of Fly from the Daohugou Formation of Ningcheng County in Inner Mongolia.
The new Fly is considered to be sufficiently distinct to be placed in a new Family, the Orientisargidae (Eastern Flies) and given the specific name Orientisargus illecebrosus, meaning the Enchanting Eastern-Fly. Orientisargus illecebrosus is an elongate, slender Fly, slightly over 12 mm in length, preserved as part and counter-part on limestone slabs.
Orientisargus illecebrosus, part and counterpart, holotype, female, dorsal view. Scale bars 1 mm. Zhang (2012).
Orientisargus illecebrosus, line drawing. Scale bar is 1 mm.
See also Two new species of Corpse Fly from Vietnam, Two new species of Mosquito from the Eocene of Montana, Miocene Quasimodo Flies in Dominican Amber, Males of two species of Horse-fly described for the first time and Two new species of Fungus Gnat from Southeast Asia and Australasia.
Follow Sciency Thoughts on Facebook.