Entomology ← ChrisR ← Page 3

Icelia (Ervia?) sp. (Surinam)

Oct

2010

An interesting species that superficially looked similar to the Uramya from the same batch but this has bare eyes. EDIT (26/11/2010): Monty Wood says that this looks correct as Icelia but that Ervia is a close sister genus – possibly even the same thing when all is said and done.

Various interesting Polideini (Surinam)

Oct

2010

The Polideini is becoming one of my favourite tribes because they have such unusual features. Most tachinids have a disc-like, hairy lappet covering the metathoracic spiracle (the hind one on the thorax) but the Polideini all have paired hairy lappets that don’t quite meet at the top, leaving a little hole. They also have a ...

close to Spathidexia (Gymnopalpus) setipennis (Surinam)

Oct

2010

This one keys quite confidently to Uramya sp. but it is a female so it lacks any tails that might confirm the determination. EDIT (26/11/2010): Monty has said that this is incorrect – it looks closer to Spathidexia and is possibly Spathidexia (Gymnopalpus) setipennis.

Pseudosiphona sp. (Surinam)

Oct

2010

Pseudosiphona is a very common genus in the neotropics – in these photos you can see the small labellum (much shorter than in Siphona) and the katepisternal bristle arrangement (with the strong lower bristle close to the posteroventral edge) typical of this genus.

Pelecotheca s.g. Cryptocladocera (male) (Surinam)

Oct

2010

The Surinamese batch of flies from Menno yielded quite a lot of male Cryptocladocera – here are just 2.

Acaulona or Xanthomelanopsis ??? (French Guiana & Surinam)

Oct

2010

Acaulona & Xanthomelanopsis look very similar to Pennapoda spp. but without the leaf-like antero-dorsal bristles on the hind tibia. The only difficulty with these flies is that I just can’t make up my mind whether they have enough dorsocentrals to qualify as Xanthomelanopsis.

Copecrypta sp. (Surinam)

Oct

2010

This is the first of a batch of flies sent to me by Menno Reemer and caught by him in Surinam in 2006. Copecrypta (and the allied genera Deopalpus & Itacuphocera) are some of my favourites. They all have an interesting ant- or beetle-shaped abdomen.

An amazing series of photo by Paul Bertner from the forests of Guyana

Oct

2010

Paul is a wildlife photographer and adventurer who contacted me a few months ago for tips on how to do serious entomology in the tropics for a trip he was planning. Paul is now trekking through Guyana with his backpack, cameras and laptop, taking photos of the wildlife he sees on his travels. He also reports ...

Stacking #2 2

Oct

2010

Here is Dave’s latest version of the Pelecotheca (Cryptocladocera) male – looking even better. To see Dave’s other photos click here.

close to Prosenoides (French Guiana)

Oct

2010

Last night I went through a tray of tachinids with a plumose arista and was amazed to see this fly with an incredibly long, straight proboscis, which I must have overlooked countless times.

Spathidexia sp. (French Guiana)

Oct

2010

This specimen keys quite easily to Polygaster – it has the anterior katepisternal bristle ventral to the pleural suture and it has the trapezoidal scutellum with crossed apical bristles enclosed within crossed subapicals/laterals. But it differs from the description in Monty’s key by having a bare r1 and cu vein and hairs only on r4+5. ...

Ebenia sp. ??? (French Guiana)

Oct

2010

Recently I have found quite a few small, black tachinids with a very plumose arista. Some are entirely black and others are a little dusted but they all have the anterior katepisternal bristle directly ventral to the pleural suture, which is a very unusual feature and suggests to me that if they aren’t Ebenia (a ...

Atactosturmia/Leschenaultia/Lespesia sp. ??? (Bolivia)

Oct

2010

This specimen is proving to be a real problem – it keys to Atactosturmia because it has 3 rows of small hairs outside the vibrissa and a bristle-comb on the hind tibia (amongst other things). But Monty things that it looks more like Leschenaultia or a black Lespesia, which only have 1 row of hairs outside ...

Drino sp. ??? (French Guiana)

Oct

2010

Needs confirmation but the lack of occellar bristles is fairly indicative.

Thelairaporia sp. ??? (French Guiana)

Oct

2010

Needs confirmation.

Zizyphosturmia sp. ??? (French Guiana)

Oct

2010

Needs confirmation.

Chaetona sp. (French Guiana)

Oct

2010

This is an interesting tachinid with a hairy (not plumose) arista, shaded wing, strong subvibrissal bristles, bristled prosternum etc. It keys to Chaetona but this genus usually has a plumose arista … this one is definitely hairy but not what I should call “plumose”, as such. EDIT (17/10/2010): Confirmed by Monty Wood from these photographs.

fg-taxon #71

Oct

2010

This is an interesting pair of specimens, both with short ‘tails’ and an ovipositor. Apologies for the poor quality of the photos but the specimens are very small and not suited to my simple camera set-up:

Daetaleus cf. purpureus (French Guiana & Peru)

Oct

2010

While examining what I thought was a Peruvian Mesembrinella (Calliphoridae, Mesembrinellinae) I realized that I was in fact looking at a tachinid – with a normal metathoracic spiracle and no pale hairs under the scutellum. Then when I examined my trap of Mesembrinella I found 2 more from French Guiana. They key out to Scotiptera (Dexinae) and ...

Stacking / compositing photographs 3

Oct

2010

Recently a local photographer called Dave Dare got in touch with me to ask if I could lend him some specimens so that he could practice macro photo stacking/compositing. This seemed a great opportunity for me to help someone out and also have some of my favourite specimens photographed with very deep focus. Dave has ...

Tachinid Recording News

Thelyconychia solivaga January 23, 2015
Recently I have been working on adding a new species to the British list to our key. Thelyconychia solivaga is a small tachinid that seems to live on fairly stony/rocky coastal sites and is very rare in the UK – in fact only 3 specimens have been found so far (by Laurence Clemons in Kent […]
The problem with Phryxe … January 20, 2015
The genus Phryxe contains a few common species (nemea, vulgaris & heraclei) and a few very rare ones (magnicornis & erythrostoma). The key pulls out nemea first by the wide gap between the facial-ridge bristles and the descending parafrontals – wider than the width of antenna-3 plus the mustardy/yellow frontal area. Splitting off heraclei has […]
Gonia face colour January 20, 2015
In the keys to Gonia one of the couplets asks you to consider the shininess of the face but this can be a confusing thing to judge when you only have one specimen. In this mini article I have taken photos of the 2 choices to make it clear. The first thing to do is […]
Linnaemya picta, tessellans & rossica confusion features November 27, 2014
For many years Linnaemya picta had been confused with rossica because early workers (e.g. Fonseca) hadn’t tried using the European keys. Since the ‘discovery’ of picta in Kent it has spread across southern England as far as Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire & Berkshire and so now we have another fairly common black-legged species to confuse with tessellans. […]
Siphona urbana or geniculata? September 9, 2013
In Andersen’s 1996 book “The Siphonini (Diptera: Tachinidae) or Europe” he made several changes to the names of Siphona spp., which have proved a bit confusing. The changes (and subsequent reversions) illustrate a few nice aspects of modern taxonomy and so I thought I would write a little piece on what happened. Every species is […]