Thread subject: Diptera.info :: Conops vesicularis (was Conopid - Physocephala?)
Posted by ChrisR on 16-05-2009 21:18
#1
Is this nice conopid a
Physocephala sp.? :) Seen in southern England today :)
Edited by ChrisR on 07-06-2009 21:29
Posted by phil withers on 17-05-2009 00:32
#2
No, I think this is
Conops vesicularis
Posted by ChrisR on 17-05-2009 00:39
#3
Googling around, it does look like that could be the one ... a new species for me and it looked really unusual - being such a large, brown wasp mimic. Do you know its status in the UK? Is it unusual? :)
Posted by phil withers on 18-05-2009 13:09
#4
It is certainly striking, being so unlike the
Conops-style one is used to that at first galnce I think one tends to ignore it as a wasp. Ken Smith said it was rare in England - I only ever caught one, but I think it is a lot earlier than the others, which might account for it.
Posted by ChrisR on 18-05-2009 13:51
#5
Thanks Phil :) It was certainly striking and very docile too ... I had tried to catch it in a net but failed, just prior to taking this photo. I slapped the net on top and it just fell off the leaf ... next time I walked past the bush it was back on a leaf again sunning itself! I guessed it was going to be distinctive enough to identify from a photo so decided to leave it in peace :)
Posted by conopid on 08-06-2009 09:31
#6
Hi Chris,
I have searched for Conopidae for 25 years and last year I saw my first C vesicularis. Then incredibly, this year I saw three in one day at three separate locations, then a fourth one at a later date elsewhere! It is certainly rightly regarded as a scarce fly in the UK, but maybe it has enjoyed a bit of a surge in numbers this year?
Posted by ChrisR on 08-06-2009 10:43
#7
Well, this was definitely the first I have ever seen - it was quite striking. :)
Last year I also bumped into 2 unusual species that seem to have been doing well recently -
Stratiomys potamida and
Mallota cimbiciformis. Also, many of the phasiine tachinids, like
Cistogaster have been expanding their ranges :)
It's not all good news though - we still have about 90 tachinids on our list with only 1 or 0 records ... many of which used to be commoner in the past (ie. we see them in collections but hardly ever get modern records for them).
Posted by phil withers on 08-06-2009 15:04
#8
Regarding the loss of tachinids: are the hosts (where known) also decreasing in range ?
Posted by ChrisR on 08-06-2009 20:30
#9
Not really sure - very little is known about the rarer species. But most tachinids are not very host-specific so I would guess that there should be suitable hosts ... but perhaps not a suitable climate or habitat :)