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31 May 2007 New Brunswick Canada. Length: 9mm.
Would appreciate ID to at least Family.

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Tony, if you (living inCanada) can't avoid Anthomyiidae, than the best way to love them! And why greyish Anthomyiidae are worse than greyish Tabanidae?
I've never seen it myself yet, but very long antennae and long and shining mentum fits good with description of Alliopsis albipennis, Holarctic Antomyiidae...
Kahis has to know this fly, described from Scandinavia:o
Nikita

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About albipennis (white feather). Where?

Edit: I saw a post regarding a brevipennis (without ornaments on the legs) so I guess albipennis has white hairs on the legs!?

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You want too much out of Nearctic Anthomyiidae!

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Come on, Nikita

Because Tabanidae have beautiful eyes !


Theo

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I really appreciate your comments, but am confused:(. A recent comment on one of my images has made me very reluctant to post images of Anthomyiidae: quote
"Tony, it is male of Anthomyiidae.
Something near Delia or another goddamned genus in this goddamned family.
Nikita".
So now I have to love Anthomyiidae:p.
Equating greyish tabanids with greyish anthomyiids is asking for trouble!

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Well Tony, even among Sciomyzidae which aren't grey, but also have beautifull stripped eyes, there are several "goddamned groups":D

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But Nikita you damned the entire family Anthomyiidae:D; and I'm in agreement.

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I'm sure if you guys continue in this vein, we will all soon love Anthos - for the entertaining correspondence they generate if nothing else. Keep it up - one day having to get the Antho key out may not cause my heart to sink quite so much :D

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About nomenclatura: pennae refers almost always to the wings. Striclty means "feathers", but in insects, brevipennis also means "short wings" and albipennis "white wings"

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This is probably Alliopsis fractiseta Stein or albipennis Ringdahl female. These two species form the fractiseta species group of Alliopsis. I am just a bit puzzled by the number of setae on the legs. It''s possible that there are other species of Nearctic Alliopsis that I don't know which look like this.

Judging by the comments about Anthomyiidae, are you all suggesting that this family is more difficult than Agromyzidae, Phoridae, Chironomidae etc?

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Michael - we've all cheered up considerably since you've been on board. I find I can happily just ignore the Agros, Phorids and all Nematocera, but the Anthos are always there and demanding to be ID'd to genera level at least :D

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Thank you for your remarks Susan. Perhaps it was all worthwhile, studying anthomyiids for 50 years!! Now you can guess how old I am. I did have a go at pipunculids for a few years, but I thought they were too difficult. Now Christian Kehlmaier of Dresden is sorting them out brilliantly.

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53? ;)

I think anthomyiids got their bad rep from the fact that they are so numerous and - unlike the other families mentioned - rather easily photographed in the field. So we got a constant stream of pictures nobody could identify. Until you rescued us from this downward spiral that is!

Staying on topic, I just got my scanner fixed and started to digitize male genitalia drawings from Hennig's anthomyiid revision. Genus Egle was the first stop, and together with Michael's keys & drawings I can finally make some sense of these common flies B)

Today's Egles: ciliata, rhinotmeta, steini

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I also want to say few words "pro" Anthomyiidae:
1. With Michael a member of Diptera.info we can see again - there isn't "bad family", there are families we havn't yet good expert on!
2. I often feel sorry that I took more than enought Diptera groups as my future specialisation yet, otherwise I'd take Anthomyiidae - Norht and Holarctic family.
Nikita