Scathophagidae, some members of which are commonly known as dung flies, is almost entirely confined to the Holarctic Region (one living species occurs in Malaysia and a few are known from Africa and South America) and consists of about 250 described species in 50 genera. Adult of living forms are predaceous on insects or small invertebrates of feed on juices in dung. Larvae occupy several feeding types including coprophagy, phytophagy, and predaceousness. They can be found in variety of habitats including plant tissues, dung, moist soil, and beached seaweed.

The family is fairly well represented in the fossil record (for calypterate flies) with five species-level taxa recorded in 3 genera. All recorded fossils are known only from the Tertiary with the oldest record being of an unidentified species of Scathophaga Meigen from the Eocene/Oligocene Baltic amber.

*CORDILURA Fallén, 1810: 15. Type species: Musca pubera Linnaeus, 1758 [misidentification, = Cordylura rufimana Meigen, 1826], by monotypy.

exhumata Cockerell, 1916c: 97. NE: USA (Oligocene) [C].
vetusta Heer, 1849: 250. PA: Croatia (Miocene) [C].

*NORELLIA Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830: 673. Type species: Norellia pseudonarcissi Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830 [= Cordylura spinipes Meigen, 1826], by monotypy.

NORELLISOMA Hendel, 1910: 308 (as genus). Nomen nudum.
*NORELLISOMA Wahlgren, 1917: 148 (as genus). Type species: Cordylura spinimana Fallén, 1819, by subsequent designation of Vockeroth (1965: 827).

setaria Statz, 1940: 145 (Norellisoma). PA: Germany (Oligocene) [C].

SCOPEUMA Meigen, 1800: 36. Suppressed by I.C.Z.N. (1963: 339).
*SCATHOPHAGA Meigen, 1803: 277. Type species: Musca merdaria Fabricius, 1794 [= Musca stercoraria Linnaeus, 1758], by monotypy.

punctata Statz, 1940: 146 (Scopeuma). PA: Germany (Oligocene) [C].
Unidentified sp.-PA: Baltic Region (Eocene/Oligocene) [A] (Handlirsch, 1921: 268).