Insects in the order Diptera are known as flies, so it’s natural to assume that these creatures can fly. And, of course, the vast majority of fly species can do just that. We’ve all experienced the nuisance of a fly repeatedly landing on us or our food soon after landing on something unhygienic.
Unlike many insects with two useful pairs of wings, most flies have a single pair of wings for flight, hence the name of their order (Diptera is derived from the Greek for two wings). Long ago, their hindwings evolved into halteres—tiny vibrating organs that work like gyroscopes, providing sensory information to help the insects steer and stabilize their flight paths.
However, some Diptera species have no wings at all. Due to their unusual anatomy and appearance, they are sometimes mistaken for other creatures, such as ants, ticks, lice, or even spiders.
Wingless flies often have parasitic relationships with other animals. For example, bee lice (which are not lice at all) feed on the mouth secretions of honey bees. Sheep keds, which resemble ticks, embed themselves in the skin of sheep to feed on their blood. And while not parasitic, another wingless species, the New Zealand bat fly, feeds entirely on the guano of the New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat.
Then there’s the strange case of Lipoptena mazamae, known as the neotropical deer ked or neotropical deer louse fly, which sheds its wings when it finds a white-tailed deer (or occasional cattle, people, or other large animals) to become its host, feeding on the animal’s blood.
Various fruit fly species can experience genetic mutations that prevent affected individuals from flying, such as a lack of flight-supporting muscles or the complete absence of wings. These flightless fruit flies are frequently used in research or for feeding pets, most commonly small reptiles.
To fly or not to fly, that is the question:
- Flies can range in size from Euryplatea nanaknihali, which is less than 0.4mm in length (smaller than a grain of salt), and lives as a parasite in the heads of Crematogaster ants. Gauromydas heros is the largest fly in the world, at up to 7 cm in length, with a wingspan of up to 10 cm.
- The order Diptera encompasses over 150,000 formally identified species, including houseflies, horseflies, mosquitoes, crane flies, gnats, midges, and many others.
- In certain wasp and moth species, the females have greatly reduced wings or no wings at all, making them flightless.
