Comparative skeletal morphology of Drosophilidae (Diptera) with notes on morphological terminology

ABSTRACT Drosophilidae includes well-known species that have served as models in the biological sciences. The family encompasses a wealth of life histories, feeding habits, and morphology. Although Drosophila has been widely used as a model taxon across several disciplines, like taxonomy, systematics, physiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology, way beyond genetics, genomics, and development, significant gaps remain unexplored in the morphological research of these flies. In this paper, we highlight the external and internal skeletal morphology of exemplars of species of Drosophilidae, offering interesting avenues for comparative research, especially to advance fly systematics. We present the first comparative study of two species of Drosophilidae: Drosophila buzzatii (Drosophilinae) and Rhinoleucophenga gigantea (Steganinae). This study provides extensive illustrations of adult males and females using both light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), documenting their morphological variations in detail. This work contributes to the interpretation of homology among anatomical structures, standardizes the application of anatomical terms for Drosophilidae, and facilitates communication between studies using drosophilid flies as models.