"A large, cosmopolitan family of small to minute flies, most with delicate hairy wings and reduced [wing] venation... [The larval stages of most species] live in galls or other deformities in living plants...Others are scavengers in decomposing organic matter... Various exotic species are predacious on aphids and other small arthropods, while a few are endoparasites, or live as inquilines in insect galls. No doubt species with similar habits occur here also." - D.H. Colless & D.K. McAlpine (1991). Chapter 39, Diptera (flies), in The insects of Australia: a textbook for students and research workers, 2nd ed. Melbourne University Press.
Cecidomyiidae is listed in the following regions: