General discussion

The Dipterists Forum holds an annual weekend course at the Preston Montford field studies centre near Shrewsbury. These courses cover selected families of flies in detail, and the 2021 course will be about the Muscidae, a large and important family of flies which utilise a large range of habitats. It will take place from Friday 19 to Sunday 21 February.

I've been asked to comment on this fly, which was found at Nursling near Southampton, Hampshire, on 5th July. I'm not competent in these Families, and would appreciate some input. Using Oosterbrook, it seemed to be coming out at Mycetobiidae with the basal cell arrangement, but I dismissed this on other grounds. I then had trouble working out the relations of CuA1 and the stem of M, and the relationship between A1 and the wing margin is out-of-view. At that point I must confess that I thought it looked a bit like Keroplatidae I'd seen in the past.......not a great way to identify flies!

This little 2mm beastie showed up in my net in mid-June from a hedgerow sweep.  It sems to key out as a Chloropid, and seems very reminiscent of the Thaumatomyia that show up around here later in the year, except that in this case the costa goes as far as vein M1+2.  Mostly yellow but with sharp black markings, including the ocellar triangle and the base of the hind tibia.  I want to say Chloropid but the experts may like to differ.  Unfortunately it was too small for me to pin with ease and in carding it the specimen landed upside down!

It's a while since we changed the set of photos on the home page, so if anyone is willing to share one or two of your 'best fly photos' for us to showcase on the home page that would be great. We tend to stick to close-up images of individual flies, and it's good to get a variety of different families represented.

Recently I was sent pictures of a suspected hoverfly larva.  I notice that Dipterists Digest 1st Series issue 9 was on this topic.  Is this still available?

What do we know about this little known (or little written about) family.  I have some small - 2 to 3 mm - flies that congregate on the leaves of my pond plants.  They key out pretty unambiguously to key 93b in the Ball/Ismay keys.  They are slightly dark green shining, which made me guess they were Dolis; I then noted that Collyer & Hammond use the phrase 'allied to Drosophilidae.'  My photos may give an idea.  I'd be glad to have some guidance.

I took this Doros profuges locally yesterday.  A lovely little fly I'd not come across before.   I wonder whether this species is nowadays a 'rarity' (the word used by Stubbs and Falk).  Since that was published we presumably have much more information.  

I've just had the following enquiry (paraphrased for brevity from an email from OUMNH) and I'd grateful for replies/comments to any of the points raised; and/or perhaps a trustworthy reference that can help.

Thanks , Ivan  

I've just suffered my first Blandford Fly bite of the season. These insects are a plague here in NW Oxfordshire, and susceptible being fairly near a body of water.  They seem to be striking earlier than usual this year – from memory, May is more typical.

I have not been able to open the old website for quite a while.  Has sit been decommissioned?  If so, is the list of references to each Family available on this new website?