Hippoboscidae - Louse flies

All images on this website have been taken in Leicestershire and Rutland by NatureSpot members. We welcome new contributions - just register and use the Submit Records form to post your photos. Click on any image below to visit the species page. The RED / AMBER / GREEN dots indicate how easy it is to identify the species - see our Identification Difficulty page for more information. A coloured rating followed by an exclamation mark denotes that different ID difficulties apply to either males and females or to the larvae - see the species page for more detail.

Flies

True flies (order Diptera) are an immense group with over 100,000 known species. They all have their hind pair of wings reduced to pin-shaped structures called halteres which act as gyroscopes to maintain balance in flight. Most feed on liquids, including nectar and blood.

The Dipterist's Forum offers a huge range of support for those interested in this group.

The families in the gallery below represent flies that are in the dipteran sub-orders Brachycera and Cyclorrhapha which are 'higher' flies, meaning later to evolve than the Nematocera which are displayed in the Craneflies, Gnats & Midges gallery. All families are displayed in taxonomic order. Note that Hoverflies (Syrphidae family) are displayed in a separate gallery.

Identification help

Facebook group: UK Diptera Facebook Group - great resource for posting images for national experts to comment on and identify.

Diptera.info - a forum site with reference photos but best used to get identification help.

Mike's Insect Keys - an excellent range of free illustrated keys to most fly families (and other taxon groups).

Hippoboscidae - Louse flies

A key and descriptions of louse-flies is available to download from the Biodiversity Heritage Library here: Oboňa J, Fogašová K, Fulín M, Greš S, Manko P, Repaský J, Roháček J, Sychra O, Hromada M (2022) Updated taxonomic keys for European Hippoboscidae (Diptera), and expansion in Central Europe of the bird louse fly Ornithomya comosa (Austen, 1930) with the first record from Slovakia. ZooKeys 1115: 81–101. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1115.80146