Overview
Adult micropezids (Stilt Flies) often live on foliage or tree trunks in forested areas and some are attracted to fresh mammal dung. Males of the wingless
Badisis ambulans
McAlpine run on flowering branches of
Astartea
(Myrtaceae) with the ants that they mimic. Larvae are little known but some live in underground plant parts or decaying wood. Those of
Badisis ambulans
live in the pitchers of the insectivorous plant
Cephalotus
in south-western Australia.
This family contains wingless flies.
Description
The main diagnostic features include:
Flies elongate, often ant-like in appearance; mid and hind legs very elongate, foreleg smaller; postocellar bristles usually divergent or parallel; pedicel of antenna without terminal process; in male, sternite 5 usually with pair of pregenital lobes.
Distribution
The Micropezidae are almost worldwide in distribution. Twenty-eight species in three of the five subfamilies live in Australia and its territories. The Eurybatinidae include the predominant Australian genus
Metopochetus
as well as the genus
Badisis
.
Mimegralla
is the only Australian genus of Taeniapterinae. The Calycopteryginae include only the sub-apterous
Calycopteryx
of Heard Island and other far southern islands of the Indian Ocean.