Classification

Domain - Eukaryota
    Kingdom - Animalia
        Phylum - Arthropoda
            Class - Insecta
                Order - Diptera
                    Family - Ptychopteridae
                        Genus - Bittacomorpha
                            Species - Bittacomorpha clavipes

Common Name:  Phantom Crane Fly

Origin of Common Name:  It earned the name "Phantom" because of its flight behavior.  It hangs or floats in the air rather than flies, spreading its long legs to catch the breeze, a little like ballooning in spiders (Phantom Midges and Phantom Crane Flies 2005).

Eukaryota:  Bittacomorpha clavipes fits into this domain because it is a multicellular organism, and it possesses a membrane bound nucleus (Biology Online 2008).

Animalia:  The Phantom Crane Fly fits into this kingdom because it is a heterotrophic organism, it lacks a cell wall, its embryo states pass through a blastula stage and it possesses specialized sensory organs (Biology Online 2008).

Arthropoda:  The fly fits into this phylum because it has paired - jointed appendages, a metameric body, a chitinous exoskeleton and an open circulatory system.  The fly is also an invertebrate and has bilateral symmetry ( Yeh 2002).

Insecta:  Bittacomorpha clavipes fits into this class because it has one pair of antennae, has three pairs of mouth organs, uses tracheae to breathe air, and have three pairs of jointed legs (Biology Online 2005).

Diptera:  The Phantom Crane Fly fits into this order because of its one pair of wings and its pair of halteres, which are modified into balancing organs.  Their mouthparts are modified for piercing or sucking, and they also show complete metamorphosis (Biology Online 2005).

Ptychopteridae:  The fly fits into this family because they are a slender moderate size fly that have a long abdomen.  They also have long legs that sometimes have bands of white across them.  Their wings are slender and have nine or ten longitudinal veins including a four-branched radius (Alexander 1981).

Bittacomorpha:  Bittacomorpha clavipes fits into this genus because they don't have ocelli.  They have 18-19 antennal segments and one anal vein reaching the margin of each of their wings (Insects of West Virginia 2009).

Bittacomorpha clavipes:  The Phantom Crane Fly fits into this species because it has black and white legs with bulging basitarsi (Fetzner 2005).

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