Ultrastructure of Antennal Sensory Organs in Nine Flesh Flies (Diptera: Sarcophagidae): New Insight into the Definition of Family Sarcophagidae

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Documents

  • Fulltext

    Final published version, 5.61 MB, PDF document

  • Wentian Xu
  • Genting Liu
  • Qike Wang
  • Liping Yan
  • Xianhui Liu
  • Xinyu Li
  • Pape, Thomas
  • Dong Zhang

The antennae are the main olfactory organ of flies, playing key roles in their survival and the success of all life stages. Antennal ultrastructural morphology has been well described in the representative species of most calyptrate families, yet only a few studies have focused on Sarcophagidae species, those with ecological and medical relevance. Antennal morphology and the types, shapes, distribution, and density of the antennal sensilla of nine Sarcophagidae species are studied in detail with scanning electron microscopy, including Miltogramminae: Metopia campestris (Fallén) and Mesomelena mesomelaena (Loew), Paramacronychiinae: Agria mihalyii (Rohdendorf & Verves), Wohlfahrtia bella (Macquart), and W. magnifica (Schiner); Sarcophaginae: Sarcophaga (Parasarcophaga) albiceps Meigen, S. (Bercaea) africa (Wiedemann), S. (Boettcherisca) peregrina (Robineau-Desvoidy), and S. (Liosarcophaga) portschinskyi (Rohdendorf), covering all three subfamilies of this family. The morphology of the three segments of the antennae has been described. The scape has only one type of chaetic sensilla, while three subtypes of chaetic sensilla were detected on the pedicel. The postpedicel has four types of sensilla: trichoid sensilla, coeloconic sensilla, clavate sensilla, and three subtypes of basiconic sensilla. Bottle-shaped sensilla were observed in sensory pits on the postpedicel in all nine species. These sensilla have not been discovered in other calyptrate species, suggesting that they are a potential sarcophagid synapomorphy.

Original languageEnglish
Article number602
JournalInsects
Volume13
Issue number7
Number of pages19
ISSN2075-4450
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

    Research areas

  • antennal sensilla, comparative morphology, flesh flies, Miltogramminae, Paramacronychiinae, phylogeny, Sarcophaginae

ID: 316063769