Some interesting flies from Paraguay

Today I received a small parcel of Diptera from Ulf in Paraguay – many thanks Ulf! 🙂  In the mix were lots of different families but he had sorted out mainly the calyptrates for me … with an emphasis on the tachinids, of course.

Here are the first specimens from the parcel – 2 Tachinini that illustrate the principle of never leaping to snap judgements. Although they look like they could be the same species they are actually completely different genera – one has long palpi and the other has no palpi at all … so they diverge quite early in Monty Wood’s key. Of course Paraguay is a long way from Central America so it is a big stretch to assume that they can be identified in the key but it will at least show a level of relatedness.