Pelecotheca ← ChrisR

Some more stacking … 1

Oct

2011

Here are a few Pelecotheca (Cryptocladocera) sp. stacks. The technique involves taking about 30 photos, each at a different focal point in the specimen and using a macro-rail to slowly move the camera backwards or forwards. The focused parts of each photo are then combined using software called Zerene Stacker (Pmax setting) to make the ...

My first stacks 7

Apr

2011

Yesterday Malcolm Storey (bioimages.org.uk) brought over some new equipment he had just bought for photo-stacking, along with a ‘kit’ including a spare dSLR (3MP Nikon D100) and macro lenses. The real star of the equipment is Malcolm’s new StackShot – an automated system for racking a camera through pre-defined focus points and taking the photos ...

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.

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.

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 ...

Pelecotheca (Cryptocladocera) sp. male (pe-taxon #25)

Feb

2010

This is the only Cryptocladocera in the peruvian sample and it looks very like the ones from French Guiana – fg-taxon #04.

Multifissicorn tachinid faces (Pelecotheca s.g. Cerotachina & Cryptocladocera)

Feb

2010

This is a little post just to show the range of antennal branching in different multifissicorn tachinids – apologies for the poor quality of the photos. As you can see, Cryptocladocera spp. have huge branches on their antennae while both of the 2 new species have much shorter antennal branches, which seems closer to the ...

Pelecotheca flavipes Thompson (Neominthoini, pe-taxon #16)

Feb

2010

After keying this taxon through MCAD it looks like one of the Neominthoini (it emerges on Neomintho, where most Neominthoini will end up) and the strong bristles on the facial ridges and the very elongate antennae are reminiscent of the females of the Pelecotheca group of species. All of the specimens in this species group are ...

Pelecotheca (Cerotachina) sp. male (pe-taxon #14)

Feb

2010

This appears to be another new, hitherto undescribed, species closely related to Cerotachina – it has no median discals and antenna-3 is very shallowly multifissicorn. That is, the third antennal segment has bumps on both sides covered with tufts of long hairs. These bumps are shorter than the branches on my French Guianan Cerotachina and ...

Pelecotheca (prob. Cryptocladocera) sp. female (fg-taxon #90)

Nov

2009

This one is unusual because the abdomen is tipped with a strange, shiny, flattened structure that resembles a squashed tube. EDIT (Monty Wood 26/9/2010): This is an example of a female Pelecotheca (probably the female of the large multi-fissicorn featherfaces so sub-genus Cryptocladocera). The flattened shiny structure is distinctive of this group of sub-genera.

Pelecotheca (Cryptocladocera) sp. male (fg-taxon #4) 3

Apr

2009

This is one of my favourite French Guianan tachinids! At first glance it looks fairly standard but when you examine the face you will see that antennal segment 3 (normally rectangular) has been formed into a feather-like structure, similar in design to moth antennae! This structure is recessed in a deep concavity in the face ...

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 […]