Flies, gnats, maggots, midges, mosquitoes, keds, bots, etc. are all common names for members of the order Diptera. This diversity of names documents the importance of the group to man and reflects the range of organisms in the order. The order is one of the four largest groups of living organisms. There are more known flies than vertebrates. These insects are a major component of virtually all non-marine ecosystems. Only the cold arctic and antarctic ice caps are without flies. The economic importance of the group is immense. One need only consider the ability of flies to transmit diseases. Mosquitoes and black flies are responsible for more human suffering and death than any other group of organisms except for the transmitted pathogens and man! Flies also destroy our food, especially grains and fruits. On the positive side of the ledger, outside their obviously essential roles in maintaining our ecosystem, flies are of little direct benefit to man. Some are important as experimental animals (Drosophila) and biological control agents of weeds and other insects. Others are crucial in helping to solve crimes or in pollinating plants. Without Diptera there would be, for example, no chocolate!
Some 150,000 different kinds of flies (Order Diptera, Class Insecta, Phylum Arthropoda) are now known and there are many more to be discovered. See www.diptera.org for a database on the names of flies and http://diptera.myspecies.info for diverse information of flies.
The Diptera portal is being developed as part of the European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy (EDIT). It aims to provide nomenclatural and taxonomic information on flies in combination with species pages. As an exemplar group the family Milichiidae was chosen and for this family webpages are available for all taxa including nomenclature, taxonomy, a distribution map and a list of all citations with keywords. For a demo page check out Milichiella lacteipennis or Phyllomyza securicornis.