Vermileonidae

The Brachyceran family Vermileonidae (the sole family in the infraorder Vermileonomorpha) is a small family of uncertain affinities and unusual biology. It includes fewer than 80 described species, most of them rare and with restricted distribution, in 10 genera. Historically the Vermileonids had been regarded as belonging to the family Rhagionidae, possibly in a subfamily Vermileoninae. Their biology and morphology is so markedly distinct from the main Rhagionidae sensu stricto howeverzas, that the placement as a separate family has been widely accepted. The adults are slender, fragile, long-legged flies, vaguely reminiscent of small crane flies. The adults generally visit flowers for nectar, but adults of some species may not feed at all. The mouthparts of the adult are hypognathous, used mainly for extracting nectar from flowers, long, and straight. This might have something to do with the common name 'snipe-fly' for the family Rhagionidae, but it would be misleading to use that name for Vermileonidae now, as they are no longer included in the Rhagionidae, which still are called snipe-flies.