PHASIINAE ← ChrisR

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.

Homogenia sp. (Brazil)

Oct

2010

These quite large (>1cm) phasiines are obviously in the tribe Trichopodini but they only have small leaf-shaped hairs on the hind tibiae. Det: Monty Wood, 2010.

Xanthomelanodes sp. (French Guiana)

Sep

2010

One of the commonest phasiine genera – note the strong divergent lateral scutellars. Determination by Monty Wood.

Oestrophasia sp. (Costa Rica)

Sep

2010

Determination by Monty Wood.

Pennapoda & Xanthomelanodes sp. (French Guiana & Bolivia)

Sep

2010

Pennapoda & Xanthomelanodes are very commonly caught genera – being part of a group of very similar phasiine genera with shaded a costa and often with orange abdominal patches. Pennapoda closely related to the genus Trichopoda and both have leaf-like antero-dorsal bristles on the hind tibia, to a greater or lesser extent. Determination by Monty ...

Phasia sp. (Brazil & Bolivia)

Sep

2010

Determinations by Monty Wood.

Pennapoda sp. ??? (pe-taxon #30)

Feb

2010

This little phasiine is undoubtably a member of the Trichopodini, from the leaf-like bracts along the hind tibiae. This is very similar to some of the taxa from French Guiana – namely fg-taxon #8 #9 & #43. EDIT (04/10/2010): This keys quite comfortably to Homogenia sp. but it is much smaller than the other Homogenia ...

possibly Xanthomelanodes (pe-taxon #05)

Feb

2010

Another really nice phasiine – quite large (8-10mm) – with very beautiful contrasting body & wing coloration. EDIT (04/10/2010): This keys to Xanthomelanodes but I am not really confident about it – but I can’t think what else it can be so that’s what it is for now 🙂

Acaulona sp. (pe-taxon #04)

Feb

2010

An interesting little (3-5mm) phasiine taxon – quite prolific in the peruvian samples. EDIT (Monty Wood, 26/9/2010): This is a group of Acaulona sp.

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.

fg-taxon #91 (Phasia sp.)

Nov

2009

This is a real Phasia lookalike with it’s body shape and wing venation, but I have run it through the keys in Sun & Marshall and compared the venation and genitalia to the figures and I can’t see anything that comes close enough to convince me that it is a Phasia sp. EDIT (Monty Wood ...

fg-taxon #8 (Xanthomelanodes & Pennapoda sp.) 1

Apr

2009

This “taxon” is actually probably 5 taxa but they share very similar superficial morphology – they are almost certainly phasiines and they have the typical chololate-coloured body with paler markings; a deeply shaded wing costa; and a large head with large eyes. Specimen #79 (8a) is shown here (Xanthomalanodes sp.): Specimen #351 (8b) is shown ...

fg-taxon #43 (Pennapoda sp.) 1

Apr

2009

This is a typical French Guianan phasiine tachinid – chocolate brown body with some orange markings with a bold brown wing costa. This species has an interesting little bristle-comb on the hind tibia and the calyptrae are half black on the posterior edge. EDIT (Monty Wood 26/9/2010): These small phasiines are usually Pennapoda – part ...

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 […]