Diptera
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
an order of two-winged insects, of which the common house-fly and blue-bottle are familiar examples. They are characterized by a body with slight coriaceous coverings, a open beneath, and containing a sucker composed of two, four, or six lancet-shaped elongated scales, two palpi, antennæ almost always composed of three joints, large eyes, an abdomen of four to seven distinct segments, tarsi with five joints, and two short clubbed appendages called halteres, or balancers, which seem to be the rudiments of the posterior pair in four-winged insects, and are kept in continual motion. All undergo complete metamorphosis, and all are oviparous except the Sarcophaga, which issue from their mother in shape of larvæ; and the Pupipara, which first make their appearance as nymphs. Brown & Dawson A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF DELHI, CAPITAL OF INDIA, LOOKING FROM THE TOP OF THE MOSQUE Enc. Vol. 3-p. 372 E. M. Newman A VIEW IN THE "STREET CALLED STRAIGHT," DAMASCUS E. M. Newman A MERCHANTS' BAZAAR IN THE FAMOUS CITY OF DAMASCUS Underwood & Underwood DIAMOND MINING AT KIMBERLEY, SOUTH AFRICA Colonial Press Service SKELETON OF A DINOSAUR FOUND BY SCIENTISTS OF THE ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM Colonial Press Service THE RED DEER VALLEY, ALBERTA, WHERE SCIENTISTS ARE UNEARTHING SKELETONS OF THE DINOSAUR Photo, International Film Service UNITED STATES TRANSPORT "MT. VERNON" IN DRY DOCK International Film Service A FLOATING DOCK, WITH A VESSEL UNDERGOING REPAIRS International Film Service THE BATTLESHIP "VIRGINIA" ENTERING THE GREAT DRY DOCK AT SOUTH BOSTON, MASS. DIPTERACEÆ DIPTERACEÆ, or DIPTEROCAR- thy sight.) John Milton's poem, entitled PEÆ, an important order of Asiatic exogenous polypetalous trees, allied to the mallows (malvacea). The different species produce a number of resinous, oily, and other substances; one, a sort of camphor; another, a fragrant resin used in temples; and others, varnishes; while some of the commonest produce pitches, and sal, valuable timber..
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's 1921 anatomy still holds: Diptera have one pair of wings, and the "two short clubbed appendages called halteres" really are the reduced hind wings, as work on the fruit fly's bithorax genes later confirmed by turning them back into wings. What the entry does not mention is the order's medical weight, only just being absorbed in 1921 after the discovery that mosquitoes carry malaria and yellow fever; flies and mosquitoes are now the deadliest animals on earth, and control campaigns from DDT spraying to the release of sterilized screwworm flies were built around them. One dipteran, Drosophila melanogaster, became the central laboratory animal of genetics in T. H. Morgan's fly room in the very years Collier's went to press. The order has also grown enormously on paper, from a modest catalogue to roughly 160,000 described species, and the old split into long-horned and short-horned flies has been rebuilt on DNA evidence.
Written for this edition, 2026.