Sri Lanka is a tropical island situated close to the southern tip of India. The invertebrate fauna is as large as it is common to other regions of the world. There are about 2 million species of arthropods found in the world, and more are still being discovered to this day. This makes it very complicated and difficult to summarize the exact number of species found within a certain region.
This is a list of the dipterans found from Sri Lanka.
Phylum: Arthropoda <br>Class: Insecta<br /> Order: Diptera
Diptera is a large order containing an estimated 1,000,000 species of mosquitoes, horseflies,
Mosquitoes (Culicidae) are vectors for malaria, dengue, West Nile virus, yellow fever, encephalitis, and other infectious diseases. Houseflies spread food-borne illnesses. Larger flies such as tsetse fly and screwworm cause significant economic harm to cattle. Well over 3,500 species of mosquitoes were found and described, and new species are about to discover. Sri Lanka is home to 131 species of mosquitoes that included to 16 genera with 17 endemic species.
Blowfly larvae, known as gentles, and other dipteran larvae, known more generally as maggots, are used as fishing bait and as food for carnivorous animals. In medical debridement, wounds are cleaned using maggots.
The exact number of species confined to the country is very difficult to note down, due to few researchers and publications of papers focusing them. Most of the cited references are from way back in 1900s, and very few are from 2010 revisions. In 2020, two stalk-eyed flies were described from Pundaluoya and Udawattakele.
There are more than 1,341 dipterans found in the island, which earns fourth largest insect order found.