NHM ← ChrisR

Science Uncovered!

Sep

2011

Last Friday I had the pleasure of helping out at the Natural History Museum’s yearly “Science Uncovered” event. For one evening the museum opens its doors until late into the night and scientists that normally work behind the scenes come out to show the public what their work is all about. On our stand (“Taxonomy ...

The OPAL cabinets are complete!

Feb

2010

At long last I am very pleased to say that the OPAL cabinet project is finished! Yesterday I collected the final batch of drawers from Max at the NHM in London and slotted them into place – as in the photo 😀 The observant amongst you will notice that I have only 36 drawers in ...

New unit trays

Jan

2010

Whilst at the NHM last week Max Barclay kindly sorted me out with some new unit trays for the OPAL-funded cabinets. I have spent a few days transferring the collection over to the new trays and this is the result: I’m sure you’ll agree, they look really professional and they fit much better than the ...

Back to the NHM again …

Jan

2010

Recently I had a few chances to go back to the NHM in London and work with the world Diptera collections – it was marvellous! I took along some of my larger & more spectacular specimens from North & South America and tried to identify them (with varying levels of success!). I also took lots of ...

Bibiomima handlirschi

Jan

2010

One of my favourite flies from my recent NHM visits is the amazingly marked Bibiomima handlirschi, a rare phasiine tachinid from Central & South America. This specimen was taken in the Panama Canal Zone in 1913.

Some Argentinian, Bolivian & Costa Rican tachinids 1

Dec

2009

A few of the more dramatic specimens from the neotropics a sample kindly donated by Martin Hauser 🙂 Identifications were derrived by comparing ot material in the NHM collections, London. EDIT (6/8/2011): I have just spotted that Monty Wood has demoted Trichosaundersia Townsend to a synonym of Epalpus – so have amended this article accordingly.

The cabinets have arrived!! 6

Nov

2009

I have just spent a really fun day with 2 friends of mine, Becca & John, driving up to the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London to pick up the OPAL-funded insect cabinets!! 😀 Max & Howard were away in Peru on a NHM jolly but Paul Brown stood in for them and looked after ...

OPAL re-housing project starts … 3

Sep

2009

The funding hasn’t come through yet but I always planned to make a contribution myself so last Friday I bought the first 20 drawers from Max Barclay at the Natural History Museum in London! I didn’t have to buy them so quickly but I wanted to make a tangible start to the project and it ...

Beskia aelops (fg-taxon #44) 2

Apr

2009

This is a strange dexiine tachinid with and extremely long proboscis and long antennae. The curl on this specimen’s antennae may have been caused by the drying process when it was taken out of alcohol – I only have one specimen of this taxon so I have nothing else to compare it with. UPDATE (30/1/2010): ...

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 […]