Group content

Common names are only rarely cited for Carnidae and seem to be more of an invention of the author than a commonly used name. The English term "filth flies", for example, was used by Sabrosky (1959) in the title of a paper about the genus Meoneura. Sabrosky probably used the general expression "filth fly" to describe the biology rather than intending the term to be a common name for the family Carnidae. The term "filth flies" is generally used for several different taxa associated with 'filth'.

This manuscript is submitted to the MYIA series and will be published in MYIA 12. While the basic work for this catalog had been done before 2002, a thorough review and the formating were done as part of my Smithsonanian fellowship working on the BioSystematic Database of World Diptera in 2005.

The Carnidae are quite small (1-2 mm) black flies and probably due to their small size, they have not attracted a great degree of study. One notable exception is Carnus hemapterus Nitzsch, which is parasitic on birds, and was therefore the centre of several studies.

The Carnidae are quite small (1-2 mm) black flies and probably due to their small size, they have not attracted a great degree of study. One notable exception is Carnus hemapterus Nitzsch, which is parasitic on birds, and was therefore the centre of several studies. Most species of the Carnidae are saprophagous and are associated with carrion, faeces, or bird's nests. Worldwide there are five genera with 88 extant and two fossil species.