Diptera.info

Posted by nick upton on 01-07-2012 12:47

I think this is Sciomyzidae, Tetanocera maybe silvatica or elata. Is it possible to confirm/correct genus and suggest species from this photo. ID needed for Bioblitz records in damp woodland.

30.6.12 8mm Abbot's leigh, Bristol, UK

Edited by nick upton on 09-08-2012 20:43

Posted by nick upton on 01-07-2012 20:31

Many thanks Jonas. I'm sure you're right. The dark wings were worrying me.... It looks like Pelidnoptera fuscipennis? So it's Phaeomyiidae - new to me - another snail-killing fly family within the Sciomyzoidea. P fuscipennis is known from damp woodland in the UK, so this seems very likely.

Posted by murph3000 on 30-07-2012 04:15

Hi Nick,

Bill Murphy here, author of the Trinidad birder's guide, stayed at Pax Guest House while you were there long ago -- I run into you in the coolest places! Besides birding, my primary work in retirement is on Western Hemisphere sciomyzids. I know little about identifying Palaearctic species, so I can't help you out with this critter, but I want to point out that the latest research places Pelidnoptera as a genus of Sciomzyidae, not as a separate family.

Very best regards,
Bill

Posted by nick upton on 08-08-2012 11:16

Hi Bill, good to hear from you - I remember you from the Pax days and have very fond memories of T&T which I visited 10x, totalling well over a year for various projects. I still make films and one I just completed for the RSPB Film Unit on the return of Eurasian Cranes to the UK is here: http://www.rspb.org.uk/film/47094552.aspx but my sideline is stills photography, much of it macro. Another correspondent I mailed my image to suggested that my Pelidnoptera fits P. nigripennis best based on leg and wing colour, so that may be the most likely ID. Maybe you can direct Paul to the paper that places Pelidnoptera in the Sciomyzidae rather than Phaeomyiidae? Maybe my first guess (and with my level of dipteran knowledge, it was a guess...!) was right.

Posted by murph3000 on 09-08-2012 17:36

Paul and Nick -- The paper is Sueyoshi, M., L. Knutson & K. Ghorpadé. 2006. Discovery of new species of Pelidnoptera Rondani and related new genus from Asia and their implications to the basal lineage of Sciomyzidae. P. ???. In: M. Suwa (ed.). Proc Sixth Intl. Congr. Dipterol., Fukuoka, Japan, 23-28 Sept., 2006.

Edited by murph3000 on 09-08-2012 17:37

Posted by Tony Irwin on 09-08-2012 20:40

Are the Phaeomyiidae (or Phaeomyiinae if they have reverted to subfamily) not millipede killers, rather than snail killers?