Identifying flies – an introduction using specimens and photos (BENHS)

Places on this workshop must be booked in advance via the BENHS website, see link above.

Flies can be found everywhere, in great diversity and sometimes in enormous numbers. There are over 7,000 species in the UK, including many that play important roles as pollinators, predators and ‘recyclers’ helping to break down dung and carrion. This year saw the publication of A photographic guide to flies of Britain and Ireland (Falk, Ashton Dimond and Creed), the first comprehensive guide to flies for many years, and an excellent resource for learning more about the different families and species and what they do.

This workshop will help you get more familiar with flies and how to start identifying them, via photos and specimens. We will use the new photographic guide alongside other keys to give you a way in to recognising some of the more common species, and to find out more about their natural history. Some copies of the new photographic guide will be available to use on the day, but please bring your own copy if you have one.

The workshop is led by Martin Harvey.