Overview
In Australia, adult odiniids have been found on or near fallen logs, and elsewhere they have been found at wounds and borer holes on tree trunks and on fungi. Larvae are recorded from beetle tunnels in wood, where they may be scavengers or actively predacious on other insects.
Description
These moderately small, stout flies have the following features:
Postocellar bristles strongly divergent; three orbital bristles, with the anterior one incurved; vibrissa present; face uniformly sclerotised; pedicel of antenna without sub-angular lobe on outer distal margin; arista with short pubescence or almost bare; dorsocentral bristles in four or five pairs; pro-episternal bristle present; anepisternum bare; prothorax without precoxal bridge; wing with vein Sc very incomplete; cells bm and cup enclosed; vein A1+CuA2 sclerotised, but not reaching the wing margin; in female, abdominal segment 7 not forming a sclerotised tube or oviscape (compare Agromyzidae).
Distribution
Odiniids have a wide, but scattered, world distribution. They have rarely been collected in Australia, although three genera are present (one of them still undescribed), and there is perhaps some further diversity at the species level. None of the six Australian Odiniidae species has yet been described.