General discussion

Had lots of encounters with Scathophaga calida in the Hebrides this summer where it sometimes outnumbers S. litorea. Was just adding some additonal photos to my Flickr site last night (and comparing the material I had to hand) which allowed me to critically compare my Hebridean material (that is the clearly the same as Skye material from Jon Cole at OUM) with some Shetland material sent to me by Roger Thomason a few years ago (also featured in the Diptera.info gallery as photos of living flies).

I have a male Lonchoptera which keys out in Ken Smith's Handbook to L. furcata.  It's difficult to compare his genitalia figures to my photo, so confirmation would be welcome.  KS says that males are rare, but he was writing in1969 - there may be more evidence around since then.

I have a female Sargus which is hard to place as between S. cuprarius and C. irridatus.  The text in the Soldierflies book accepts there will be problems and identification can be confirmed only via the genitalia.  When I examined this female she proved to have a clutch of six eggs in the end of the addomen. Apart from i/d, therefore, I'd welcome guidance on whether by careful conservation I could keep the eggs viable through to the adult stage.

I am intrigued by the fly attached which has yellow legs. The fly was seen in the last week in central England. 

Help, please.

Thanks.

Can someone help with the ID?

My question relates to the key in Kenneth Smith's handbook of 1969.  I have a female specimen swept locally two days ago which keys out to L. nigrociliata.  My first assumption (that I had the very common L. lutea) falls at the first fence where the decision is based upon a bristle on the middle tibia - which my specimen has and lutea does not.  The key also points to females of nigrociliata having wing vein a1 ending 'very much beyond' the m fork, as mine does.

Following on from my earlier general enquiry re Dolichopodidae records in VC55 I am now concerned about the veracity of my records of Dolichopus agilis in the county.

I took this several times during malaise trapping at several locations in the Rutland Water NR in the period 2014-2016 and I have since found it in Rothamsted light trap material at the Loddington (East Leics) site. At RW both sexes were taken but only females at light.  I have only two other records - one from a churchyard in west Leics and another by Andy Jukes from a site in north Leicester 2018. 

I'm presently pulling together Dolichopodidae data for Leicestershire & Rutland (VC55) in order to produce a status report for the family (to 2020) as part of a series of reports produced by the Leicestershire & Rutland Entomological Society.

I have worked through available online databases as well as local records and also pored over publications.  I have a simple question - are the data on the NBN Atlas up-to-date and, if not, is it possible to access a database where the information can be retrieved?

Many thanks

Ray

Hi,

Please can anyone ID this beautiful fly seen at Polsden Lacey (Surrey Hills) this afternoon?

(OK I moved off iPhone, resized the image and corrected the spell checked 'corrections’).