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Good evening,

Here is another of my unidentified diptera.
In this Tipulidae, the color puzzles me. Is this a Nephrotoma sp. or a Tipula sp.?
Can someone please help me with this one?
The picture was taken at Carvoeiro, Algarve on July 7, 2016.
Thanks in advance for any tips.
Kind regards,

Fernando

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And another picture...

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I think it is one of the Nephrotoma with long Rs.

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Hello John,

Thanks for the reply. At least now I have the genus right.|t
We have been know, here in Portugal, to receive some vagrant species from the Americas like the butterflies Vanessa virginiensis and the Monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus. Could this be N. ferruginea, coming from US?
Kind regards,

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I thought of N. ferruginea immediately -- it is the common species where I live -- but thought you must have some similar species in Europe. Now I see that N. ferruginea has been recorded from Spain and Portugal and is distinguished from native species by "the orange-brown stripes on the dorsum in place of the more usual black markings."

I think vein Rs might be too long. A clearer picture of the wing would help resolve that doubt.

Hancock, E.G., C. Quirce & M.A. Marcos-García. 2015. A second European record for Nephrotoma ferruginea (Fabricius, 1805), a potential insect pest, with other Iberian records of Nephrotoma species (Diptera,Tipulidae). Entomologists Monthly Magazine, 151: 149-153.

I think there was a revision of the species group including ferruginea but I don't have time to look for it right now.

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This one? Oosterbroek, P. 1984. A revision of the crane-fly genus Nephrotoma Meigen, 1803, in North America (Diptera, Tipulidae), Part II, the non-dorsalis species-groups. Beaufortia 34: 117-180. http://ccw.natura...,_1984.pdf

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Thanks John and Paul, for confirming the possibility. |t
Here is my best photo of the wings. Probably not with the correct angle.
If it cannot be confirmed from the picture, it will stay as a tentative ID.
Thanks a lot!

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That is the one.

"As far as is known the [brevipennis] group consists of three species from Madeira (brevipennis, lucida, antithrix), four nearctic species, about 10 neotropical species, mostly from Central America and undescribed, and the eastern palaearctic species hirsuticauda. The latter species is closer to the nearctic species than the species from Madeira are."

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The record of Nephrotoma ferruginea in the paper I cited was from eastern Spain, almost 800 km away. I don't have descriptions of all the species from Madeira and I don't know if they could be mistaken for ferruginea. The dark spots on the side of the thorax are unusual in the genus.

I think you can call this ferruginea unless an expert puts it under a microscope and says otherwise.

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Thank you so much Jonh! Great help!|t

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Dear all,
The two photos by Fernando Pires are Nephrotoma suturalis wulpiana.
Nephrotoma ferruginea and N. s. wulpiana are Nearctic species that recently have become known from the south of the Iberian Peninsula (Hancock et al., 2015b on N. ferruginea, and Hancock et al., 2016 on N. s. wulpiana; both papers available as PDF from the CCW (ccw.naturalis.nl)).
N. ferruginea is known from southern Spain and N. s. wulpiana from Spain (Valencia) and Portugal (Algarve).
N. ferruginea has two small spots at the upper side of the lateral thorax (fig. 5 in Oosterbroek 1984, PDF also available). N. s. wulpiana has only the upper one (as on the two above photo on Diptera-info).
In N. s. wulpiana the posterior end of the mid-dorsal thoracic stripe is darkened and continues into the thoracic suture (this is more or less visible on the two photos).

All the best,
Pjotr Oosterbroek

Photos on Diptera-info of N. s. wulpiananfrom Spain (Valencia) at: https://diptera.info/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=78626&highlight=nephrotoma+ferruginea&pid=328816#post_328816

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Good evening Pjotr,

Thank you so much for this final identification.
I'm very happy that it was possible to sort this one out.|t
Have a great Easter.

Fernando