Soldierflies and Allies – BENHS indoor workshop

An opportunity to explore this fascinating group of 11 families of flies, using the excellent resources at BENHS to practice identification via keys, specimens and microscopes. We’ll also discuss identification from photos and suggest some targets for recording during the coming year. The most comprehensive guide to these flies is “British soldierflies and their allies” published by BENHS (and available at a discount to members). We’ll also make use of the new field guide for north-west Europe by Zeegers and Schulten. Further identification resources are available on the soldierflies recording scheme website. This workshop is suitable for beginners as well as more experienced recorders who want to get more familiar with the group, and to focus on the more challenging genera such as Tabanus and Thereva. Specimens will be available on the day for use with the keys, and if you have specimens of your own to be checked please bring them.