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Hello again!

I have one question about identification of Ectophasia females.
I understand from here that according to the central abdominal black stripe it is possible to identify a female of Crassipennis from a photo.

In this other thread I understand that it is not possible (for females) to decide from a photo.

So what's the key? Possible to say Crassipennis if stripe widens to the whole abdomen width and impossible to say anything in other cases ?

If so for this photo, it is E. crassipennis?




Edit: ooops I forgot :
Place : Puchay (Normandy, France).
June 8th, 2006
~ 1cm.

Edit2: I forgot the title!!
Thanks.

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^ Up ^

Could we say
- Ectophasia crassipennis
or do we leave it as
- Ectophasia sp. ?

Thanks.

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Your understanding is right, in females the genitalia need to be studied.
However, in Normady this is bound to be E. crassipennis

Theo Zeegers

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Thanks a lot for the confirmation.
And nice to say I understood though I didn't!

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The question in the subject implies a second, unanswered, question:
Is this a female?

When dealing with Ectophasia it is not always easy to say whether it is a female or a male. Because males often are gynaecomorph, a form which resembles females very much in appearance. Males can be recognized by the genitalia, the flattened shape of the abdomen (lateral view) and large claws.

In this case genitalia and shape of abdomen are not visible.
The size of the claws is not very good visible, but i guess they are relatively small.
So it is, probably, a female.

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Thank you Liekele for this additional information.
I checked with other photos of the present subject and the claws are small indeed. I compared to male claws on other photos, and saw that they are very larger. So it is, definitely, a female.

My other photos are all from the above so impossible to really appreciate the flat-or-not abdomen shape criterion (except with the shadow on the flower).