Yellow Cereal Fly

This grass fly is markedly orange with a brown abdomen. It has four dark wing markings.

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Opomyza florum
Family: 
Cereal flies
Family Latin name: 
Opomyzidae
Category: 
Insects other
Vernacular names: 

Grass Fly

Species description

Species description

This grass fly is markedly orange with a brown abdomen. It has four dark wing markings.

They are found in water meadows, fields of cereal crops and water margins. Larvae feed on grass stems and can become a pest. They are most common in early sown wheat in late September and October.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)

Details

Species family information

Flies in the Opomyzidae family have grasses and cereals as their larval food plant. They can therefore be agricultural pests.

Category information

Insects evolved in the Ordovician from a crustacean ancestral lineage as terrestrial invertebrates with six legs (the Hexapoda). This was the time when terrestrial plants first appeared. In the Devonian some insects developed wings and flight, the first animals to do so. An early flying group was the Odonata from the Carboniferous, the damselflies and dragonflies, which have densely-veined wings and long, ten-segmented bodies. They are day-flying carnivores, with an aquatic larval stage, so are commonly seen flying near water. The carnivorous larvae are called nymphs. Odonata species are short-lived, damselflies surviving for 2-4 weeks, dragonflies for up to 2 months.

Some insect groups in the Cretaceous co-evolved with the flowering plants, and they have had a close association ever since. These groups are the Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants), the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), the Diptera (flies), and the Coleoptera (beetles). The diversity of beetles is astonishing. Of all the known animal species on the planet, one in five is a beetle!