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Hello!

This one from yesterday afternoon at the forest (northwest Germany) leaves me a little bit confused: not that small (8-9 mm), but no Calliphora. The only idea I have is Protophormia terraenovae. But isn't that a spring species?


Larger pictures:
http://www.foto-u..._2_big.jpg
http://www.foto-u..._3_big.jpg

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Pic #2

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Pic #3

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Looks similar to one I posted on 4th Oct.,which was ID'd as Protocalliphora sp. possibly azurea. But I'm probably wrong
as usual. :|
Regards Roger

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Dear Juergen,
I would like to ask, why the three photos here? The first is not as clear as the second and nothing additional is shown in the third, while I accept that you have a right to show off your photography, I have a slow connection and I pay for my it by the kilobyte. The number of posts recently, that I have looked into (not just this one of yours but I have not spoken before) that have had three or four photos where one would have sufficed is quite frustrating.

Gordon

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Consider yourself ticked off. :D:D:D

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Hello, Gordon!



I am sorry. Originally on my PC the three pics were much more different in size, and different parts were sharp in each one, than they now appear here after resizing them to nearly the same size and compressing them to fit for the upload :|. I always hope, there is one or another detail not recogizeable in one picture, but perhaps in the other. It's often difficult to choose the right pics (and the really large pics with more details I generally only post as links with filesize indication). I will try to do it better in the future...

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I'd encourage anyone to post all photos available. The poster cannot decide which is useful and which is not.
I;ve had the reversed situation often: the poster did not post the most relevant pic in the first posting. Very annoying in my opinion.

As for the fly, to me it is Protophormia as suggested by Juergen himself. This fly is very cold-resistant.


Theo

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I'd suggest one way to compromise between the two concerns is to make a cut-and-paste of the three or four pictures into one. I've been doing that recently , keeping the width at 800 pixels and the size at about 150 Kb . I find that the quality is still acceptable for our purpose f the original is of reasonable resolution, and if it's not too googd, well... it does not get much worse. The main advantage is that you get all the pix in the same message, too. my tcw...
Philippe

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Hello to all!

Thanks for your opinions and suggestions. I think, the format of a photo is less relevant (as long as it is not too wide for the screen size; I assume, most people use at least 1024x768 pixels) than the real file size. That can be reduced efficiently by setting the JPEG quality to 60% or lower in the photo editing program one uses. I additionally use an image compressing software, which is even more efficient, so the size of most of my pics is smaller than that of many untreated photos with a bigger resolution (depends on the complexity of the background etc., though). Therefore I would not favour a too low resolution restriction of posted photos, but rather a more limited filesize if necessary (195 KB I find very generous; in my own forum I have 100 KB for guests and 150 KB for registered users).


@Theo: thanks for confirmation of P. terraenovae.

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Personally, I like the inset idea, I did notice that Phillipe or somebody else had done it and have since used it myself, only I set my pics to 600 pixels because this seems to fit the screen better. You can always post another photo if someasks for detail of the legs or something, if you have it.

I cannot be the only person on the list who does not live in the West, or a big city and cannot get a fast/broad band connection. My connection is through a mobile phone sort of gizmo and I pay 30 Euroes a month basic plus extra every time I exceed the bandwidth limit, my sister's family in the UK pay abot 13 Euroes a month for Broad band with no bandwidth limit, and no dropped connections at inconvenient times.

Ultimately the answer lies, from the posters point of view, in good photo quality and luck. I while back I posted a photo of a Cylindromia, I had a variety of reasonable photos, but it would not have mattered how many I posted, you can't do a genitalia dissection on a photo.

Gordon

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I can see the problem of Gordon, but I can't agree with the example Cylindryomyia.
This is a perfect example in which case nearly all species can be identified from photos, if all angles are represented !
No genitalia needed (at least: not in Europe).

So in my opinion the 'counterexample' actually illustrates my point.

Theo

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Sorry, I am only going on what I have been told. But not by anybody here I must add. Theo, would you like to have another look at my Cylindromia thread and tell me what else you need to see. I notice I am guilty of 2 images there already, oh well.

http://www.diptera.info/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=16197

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I'd like to have a really good view of the scutellum and if possible of the ventral side of the abdomen.

An excellent pic of the antennae might help as well.

I didn't see it would be easy....


Theo