Abstract
The classical scholar Aristotle appreciated how distinct flies are among living organisms and gave them the collective Greek name ′Diptera′ in the fourth century BC. It means ′two-winged′ (di + pteron), and is very apt because flies differ from almost all other insects in having only one pair of functional wings. Linnaeus did not need to invent a new name when, in the mid-eighteenth century, he introduced the system of biological classification used today: he merely adopted Diptera as the name for his order of insects containing all the true flies. It has remained the universal name.
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Crosskey, R.W. (1993). Introduction to the Diptera. In: Lane, R.P., Crosskey, R.W. (eds) Medical Insects and Arachnids. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1554-4_3
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