Psocoptera and Phthiraptera were previously regarded as separate orders in their own right; the former being home to the species that have traditionally been known as barklice and booklice, and the later including all the parasitic sucking and biting lice. Today, they're generally treated as unranked subdivisions of the order PSOCODEA.

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My limited interest in this group purely lies with the outdoor arboreal species that are now being referred to as barkflies, which is a new name that avoids the negative connotations of the term 'lice'. The domestic or indoors species retain the original name of booklice.

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The barkflies we're looking at here are primarily woodland insects that are usually, but not solely, found on the trunks, branches or foliage of a wide range of both broadleaved and coniferous trees. As is often the case, oak ranks highest in providing the greatest diversity and numbers of species, followed by beech, yew, pine, elder and hawthorn. There are also a few species that are more associated with shrubs and low vegetation, and some that may only be seen within leaf litter or under stones.

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Most species are just a few millimetres long and, consequently, very easily overlooked unless you're specifically searching for them so, on that basis alone, I doubt whether many will end up being featured here. However, I'm always drawn to insect groups where individuals can be visually identified from external characters rather than through microscopic examination and, fortunately, that seems to be possible to some degree with many of the species that are likely to be encountered.

 

And, you don't need to look much further than the BRC 'National Barkfly Recording Scheme' website that only focuses on the 68 species that have currently been recorded in Britain. In addition to general information regarding barkflies, there's a really good online pictorial starter 'key' that initially looks at whether the insect has wings and whether they are longer or shorter than the abdomen, and then checks whether the specimen in question is actually a barkfly and not an aphid or psyllid jumping louse. For the more common fully winged species, there are clear wing venation diagrams that help the identification process. So, all in all, it's a great resource if you've found a barkfly and have managed to get some decent photos that clearly show the wing venation and markings which, of course, is often tricky with very small subjects.

 

To date though, I've only managed to photograph three species - the two featured here quite successfully, but only 'record shots' of the third. They were all found in our back garden, and have all been identified as Ectopsocus species. The two common forms of the genus are Ectopsocus briggsi and Ectopsocus petersi, which are often lumped together and treated as an aggregate even though they can be distinguished from their wing markings. The first individual shown here is almost certainly Ectopsocus briggsi as the reduced markings are very clear. The other is probably the same species, but has been left as unidentified.

   

Given that both of these were chance encounters it may be a while before this page is updated.

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