Alinka Krzemiński, 1992: 46

BLAGODEROV, VLADIMIR, GRIMALDI, DAVID A. & FRASER, NICHOLAS C., 2007, How Time Flies for Flies: Diverse Diptera from the Triassic of Virginia and Early Radiation of the Order, American Museum Novitates 3572, pp. 1-40 : 14

Alinka Krzemiński, 1992: 46 . Type species: Alinka cara

Krzemiński, 1992, monotypic, by original designation.

Krzemiński (1992: fig. 16) described Alinka cara as the earliest representative of Brachycera known at the time. This opinion was later critiqued by Shcherbakov et al. (1995), Grimaldi and Cumming (1999), and others. Our re-examination of the holotype (YPM 16826 [not 100 000 as originally cited]) supports the placement of Alinka in the family Procramptonomyiidae . Eleven flagellomeres are preserved in the antenna, although the actual number could be greater because the apical flagellomere is incomplete and without the apical tuft of setulae originally reported ( Krzemiński, 1992: fig. 6a). The only synapomorphy of Alinka with Brachycera was a short R 4, but this character state appears several times in Diptera , such as in Paraxymyiidae , Eoditomyiidae , and Protorhyphidae (see below). The paratype of A. cara is too poorly preserved to be identified as a conspecific with certainty.

SUPERFAMILY SCIAROIDEA BILLBERG, 1820

FAMILY PARAXYMYIIDAE ROHDENDORF, 1946

This family includes basal sciaroids (‘‘fungus gnats’’) with three branches of RS and a distinct, though sometimes faint base of M. We are including in this family the Eomycetophilidae Ansorge, 1996 , which is apomorphic in having R 4 very short, apical, and transverse. We consider this family to be a subfamily of Paraxymyiidae . Four genera of Paraxymyiidae are known from the Late Triassic to the Early Cretaceous: Paraxymyia Rohdendorf, 1946 ; Veriplecia Blagoderov, 1999 ; Eomycetophila Kovalev, 1990 ; and Complecia Blagoderov, 1999 .