Cascoplecia Explained

Cascoplecia insolitis, rarely known as the unicorn fly,[1] is an extinct dipteran that lived in the Early Cretaceous. The type specimen was found in Burmese amber. George Poinar Jr., who described the fossil, placed the genus into a new family Cascopleciidae. One of the defining characteristics of Cascoplecia is the presence of three ocelli raised on an extended, horn-like protuberance. The distinctiveness of the family was questioned by other authors, and the genus has been subsequently transferred to the family Bibionidae.[2] [3]

Notes and References

  1. George . Poinar Jr. . Cascoplecia insolitis (Diptera: Cascopleciidae), a new family, genus, and species of flower-visiting, unicorn fly (Bibionomorpha) in Early Cretaceous Burmese amber . Cretaceous Research . 2010 . 31 . 1 . 71–76 . 10.1016/j.cretres.2009.09.007. 2010CrRes..31...71P .
  2. Thomas Pape, Vladimir Blagoderov & Mikhail B. Mostovski. 2011 Order DIPTERA Linnaeus, 1758. In: Zhang, Z.-Q. (Ed.) Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness.
  3. Li . L. . Skibińska . K. . Krzemiński . W. . Wang . B. . Xiao . C. . Zhang . Q. . 2021 . A new March fly Protopenthetrius skartveiti gen. nov. et sp. nov.(Diptera, Bibionidae, Plecinae) from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber . Cretaceous Research . 104924.

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