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Hi,

I found this wingless fly in Barcelos, Portugal on the 2nd of March 2008. Is it possible to tell something about it?

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I hope you can send it to me: It is a wingless hybotid and I'd be very happy to add it to my collection. ;)

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Hi Paul,

I already put it in alcohol, I hope I did it right.

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If you give it to Jorge... Jorge can deliver it to me by the end of march when I am in Batalha ;)

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Hi,

This is Tachydromia, probably an undescribed species (I will check once again). Unfortunately, it is a female. Did you collect only a single specimen?
Currently, Patrick Grootaert and me prepare a world revision of this genus. There have been found a few wingless species of Tachydromia.
All the best,:)
Igor Shamshev

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Ok. I will pick up the fly of Andrade and deliver it to Andre...

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Did you find it dead?

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Unfortunetly I only have one:(. This is a very small fly and I think it will be very difficult to find another one, but I will try.

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No, I found it alive but I only had the opportunity to photograph it now, and meanwhile it died.

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Did you find this one in the place you showed to me before? I remember a photo where you found vermileonid larvae. :P

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Yes:)

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I forgot to thank you all for your help, thank you:)

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Today I went to Barcelos, and I found more Tachydromia :)

I collected 4 specimens that are in the four photos below. Is there a male among them (I don't know how to separate both sexes)?
On the first photo we can see two lengthy structures on the thorax that are absent on the other specimens. What are those?

1

2

3

4

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Those 'were' the 'wings'. I hope you collected enough of them to serve us all? ;)

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Evidently the male has vestigial wings, while the female has no wings at all.
Great photos of a new species. Well done Rui! B)

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WOWOW!!

Well done, Andrade! Next weekend I will go there :P
I saw Hybotids here too today but no one was wingless. :( Platypalpus spp.

j? sabes.. :p

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Thank you very much Paul, Tony and Jorge:).

It seems that this species is common in Barcelos because I didn't have any difficulty finding the specimens. So, don't worry Paul, there is enough specimens for all of you ;).

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Today I saw many more of them. Once I had six of them in my field of vision:o.

I also saw one male feeding on a little dipteran. Does someone have an idea of what could the prey be?

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jeeeee...
like a sword stoling the life of a nematoceran fly.

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The prey is probably a sciarid.

Great find! "Tachydromia ruii" :)

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or T. andradae... :P

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LOL:D

Or, for example, T. dipterainfoi, in honour of all who contribute to make this forum the best;)

Theo raised in this thread (http://www.dipter...post_54568) the question of what the tachinid was doing. I have in the photo below the hybotid doing the same thing:

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those white things are interesting!! I must go to Barcelos next weekend! Hopefully it will not rain.
Maybe they are pollen grains. It would explain a lot of things. :)
Palinology would answer this one. :P

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This species looks similar to T apterygon described from Italy by myself and John Deeming. However, yours has vestigial wings and the Italian sp hasn't even a trace of a wing or halter.
It will be interesting to hear what Igor makes of it
I'd attach a photo if I new how
cheers
Adrian

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Adrian, If you want to attach an image, use the 'Post Reply' button just above the 'Quick Reply' box. Instructions are in the FAQ.

Igor and I assume this will be a new species but we think it will be necessary at least to add the genus Pieltania to that equation. Together with Patrick Grootaert we will look in to this. Adrian, if you have a pdf of your paper, I'd be happy to receive a copy/pdf (or at least a reference) so we can add that one into the equation as well.

To that marvelous Portuguese lot out here, the request to collect as many as possible pictures and biological data. Even in the case it does not prove to be anew species, this is an excellent opprotunity to get to know more about this remarkable species.

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Hopefully this weekend I will go to the place and with Andrade I will take photos and observe the ethology of these beauties. :)

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Dear Adrian,

Because this peculiar species has attracted so much attention I would like to give some broader comments.
1. Your fine species from Italy can be readily distinguished from this species by wings and halteres completely absent (as you have noted), pale yellow palpi, colour of legs and some other characters.
2. I placed this species within Tachydromia but, following current systematic of Tachydromiinae, the species should be placed within Pieltainia Arias, 1919. Arias erected this monotypic genus owing to lack of wings and halteres in his species. So, I believe that Pieltainia is likely a synonym of Tachydromia. Hopefully, at the nearest time, we will discuss this situation as Paul have noted.
3. This species vs. Pieltainia iberica Arias, 1919. According to these pics this species is very similar to Pieltainia iberica Arias, 1919 [described from Cala, provincia de Huelva (Spain)]. However, Portuguese species has vestigial wings (in male only?) and slight differences in legs colour. It is interesting to note that P. iberica was found in early spring actively running about in pursuit of Sciaras and other microscopic Diptera on which it preyed.

All the best,:)

Igor

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Now I'm curious about the biology (ecology, ethology, etc...) of Tachydromia in general. For example, what do the larvae feed on? How could this species' male use its vestigial wings? And so on.

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Dear Rui,
Species of the genus Tachydromia Meigen are quite small, shining black or blackish brown, usually have wings with brown pattern and are found running about quickly on tree-trunks, logs, stones, sand, or leaves of lower herbage resembling in some respects small hymenopterans or ants (Chvála, 1970). The group is almost worldwide in distribution (unknown from Australia) and currently includes 107 species (Shamshev & Grootaert, in press). Nothing is known about larvae of these flies.

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You are so near from the local. Lucky you! :P
Vestigial wings: it can be explained according to the ecology of these flies. As they were adapted to the ground life, the ascendents of these flies take off the wings as they were not so used. remember that evolution don't pursue an objectif.

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Thank you Igor:)

It seems that there is a lot to discover within this genus. In what concerns me I'll try to gather more information.
I don't know if it's important, but I have collected the prey (the sciarid) of the male Tachydromia.

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I asked that because the females don't have wings. If the females don't have wings, why do the males?

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remember that usually males move a lot their wings to impress the females. Maybe with the latter change in a population of Tachydromia could trigger that loose of wings due the style of life. Maybe now with these male hybotids they can impress their females with an offering of a prey.

Of course, these are only hypothesis and they could be wrong. Very soon we will know some answers. ;)

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Here at last is the image of T. apterygon from Italy:- clearly different from your sp.
We still have a great deal to find out about this genus:- even in Europe
cheers
Adrian

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unfortunately, this weekend will rain and we cannot see these flies in action. :(

About the size: what is the size for T. apterygon ? For those lusitanic Tachydromia are about 2 mm - 3 mm.

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Dry-mounted holotype male: 2 mm

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T. apterygon is c 2mm long. (see Plant & Deeming Int. J. Dipterol. Res 17(1) 13-16 2006). The type locality is a steep mountain slope at 1400m in the Appenine Mountains of Italy at the edge of alpine meadow and deciduous woodland. A single male was found on the ground layer of stones and organic rubbish (how I envy the numbers you are finding in Portugal!)
To my knowledge brachyptery (loss of wings) is only otherwise known in T rossica (described by Igor from Mongolia) while T. brevipennis & T schnitteri have greatly reduced wings. Considering the large number of Tachydromia and their cursorial habits, it is perhaps no surprise that another one has been found. Maybe we should all be searching the ground in mountain areas and might find a few more?
The question of mating habits was raised earlier. I suggect that Tachydromia has more a 'grab and rape' strategy rather than a more complex display component. The related genus Tachypeza sometimes has strange marks on the front legs and these might possibly be used in displaying to females (especially likely as these markings are lacking in the female). However, Tachypeza has more bland fore legs so I still support the grab & rape hypothesis.
Good luck with finding out more about this species:- and if you have any spare specimens.............

cheers
Adrian

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Adrian, thank you for posting the image of T. apterygon.

Barcelos' Tachydromia are 2 mm long as well.
I'm very curious about the mating rituals. In the last weekend, I put together one female and one male to see if something happened but they ignored each other:(.
Unfortunately I can only go the place during the weekends and in the next one it will be raining:(.

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NEWS:B):D

Today me, Andrade and him brother went to the famous local of the new hybotid. True: there are plenty of them. And today we found mainly... males! :) And a very special occasion: copula. :D

yes, we took videos, photos, and observed the spectacular and hilariant phenomenon! :D I will tell more details soon.

Andrade will upload photos right now. I will upload more in one hour. And it will be available in youtube superegnum (my account) those videos.. :D
With copula included... :)

Be tunned! :D

Highly strange the way this flies use their legs as you can see in the next photo. like an acrobat...
As you can see in Andrade's photos the male NEVER moved during all the copula!!! LOL (I will write more later about this.)

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Here are my photos from today:

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another photo

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another. Look at those awesome bristles curved in first pair. :|

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this is amazing!

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another one..detail of female (2 mm)

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more detail of the female (with mpe). almost 5:1

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another..

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another...

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another..

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:D

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another..

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The story:

I went to Oporto to meet Andrade and him brother. Our target: hunting to the new hybotid. There were some episodes before we could reach the place though. :P The weather's forecast (for North) was intense rain. :P But even with this forecast I drove 150 km from Viseu to Barcelos and after 100 km I could reach to Oporto city (PORTO) and there I found my friends Andrade and him brother. ;) When we reached to the place (near Barcelos), the sky was almost clear and the clouds were very far... rain, yeah.. :P Very quickly we almost run so we could take 2 hours in the field before sunset. :S It was about 5.10 pm when we arrived near Barcelos. The local is protected by Pinus cf. pinaster trees around. No feel of intense wind which is good. ;) After 5 minutes, we found the first hybotid! hooray!! and it was a male! Great! :) The hybotids run so fast, they are so irrequiet.
They can almost pass unnoticed. They are *really* very small (around 2 mm - 3 mm) At unaided eye it is not easy to discern the vestigial wings. :S (Continuing..) Well, then.. we found another one... and more... and the count was in 5 WHEN we saw two hybotids copulating!! This way of copula is rather strange and hilarious. :D The female, all the time, pull the male. The male never moved all this time. He seems so relaxed (it seems in high...) and the female always run around but not so fast of course. The "dead" weight difficult her locomotion. Sometimes we could see the female uplift her hind legs and massaging her abdomen, the male... always quiet... very quiet... it seems that he thinks: "this is so boring"... :) The copula lasts over than one hour, we could not know about the beginning. Unfortunately, they finished their copula because we caused inadvertently the separation (it was very late! almost 7 pm... :|).
You can see the videos here in my youtube:
http://www.youtub...cDrPbyA__c - female uplifting her hind legs during the copula
http://www.youtub...ea4NEAnYUk - as you can see the male is always quiet as he was nearly dead... the female.. poor female... wandering with that weight! :P

Male - vestigial wings; true dorsal (?) bristles curved on tibia of the first pair of legs; head with a very curious suture; plumose antenna near the base;

Female - clearly no wings; swollen abdomen; bigger in size in relation with male (but the difference is not evident); legs more darker than the males; scutum and scutellum almost bare; curious the fact that the female has a much more plumose antenna (more conspicuous than the male): legs much more bare than the males - has some microtrichia in ventral fore legs; both have 3 ocelli(very small and around 0,1 mm?)

Curious things - they jump when we took them in a stick and if this stick is around 10 cm to the ground they jump. They are very sensitive to movement, and maybe to the flash light, but clearly very sensitive to movement. They can be much more quick than a normal phorid fly, but not with many change of directions. On the ground, I never see them jumping, only wandering and running.

questions:
- why the female spent so much energy to load/transport the male... ?
- why the male remains almost like a dead fly during the copula?
- where they put the eggs??
- what is the time that it takes to get out since egg- imago stage?
- what is the best time to spot them?
- Is this species really common or very localized?
- it seems that this species is tolerable to the pollution... the local has some degree of pollution. Is it possible to use this species to know if the local is free or not of pollution.. I mean: Can we use them for a good pollution level indicator?

etc.

Thanks. And for the final... a silhouette of this fantastic fly.

and yes... we have hybotids for Paul, Adrian and Igor. I will give them to Andre in next week. I hope he can go to the Coimbra... :)

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Interesting photos Rui and Jorge.

I wonder how a fly without wings get's distributed? Did they spread a long time ago when the fly maybe had wing and this is what is left, an endemic population? Or is it maybe the egg/larva stages of their life that allows for distribution possibilities!? Or do they just wander about. I guess that last part depends on how specific their living environment is and what requires for them to survive.

Did you see any more hunting activities or were they just humping around?

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thanks crex. I was thinking the same! I think at the moment nobody knows the answer. It will be curious to know the rate of their dispersion and if even they migrated in the past, or not...
No, we didn?t see any more hunting activities. Only busy with the observation of the copula... and with this video >>>
http://www.youtub...tO59JiVAGE it seems that the female is trying to get off terminalia of the male, but this last don't do anything. :| and yes, the male is alive. I keep it alive yet.. :| Very strange this behaviour... female was dragging all the time the male.
I will try to study this fly, but 300 km is not easy to get hands on it.
I will give some indications to Andrade, and Igor, Paul and Adrian can help in this task too. :) They know much better hybotids than myself.

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If you have, by any chance some photos of the micro and macrohabitats...

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I told to Andrade to take photos of habitat. :) You will see very soon those photos.
Pinus cf. pinaster, Ulex spp., Prunus lusitanica, Eucalyptus spp. are the dominant plants there. The ground is mainly arenite and silt. The hybotids like hidden among the dry leaves of Eucalyptus spp. and use too the very slender leaves of Pinus sp.

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What an exciting and amusing weekend you two have had. I notice the male appears to be quite stiff in copula (no sniggering please :p) - what I mean is he doesn't really move his legs or anything to protect himself from being bounced from rock to rock, but his limbs aren't flopping about limp either.

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:D precisely. he didn't care anything about the "MANY" bounces he had. ;) this is what I call "hard sex". :D

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another photo of the male.

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Jorge,

All pictures are wonderful, but this last one is specially good, because one sees the vestigial wings very clearly.

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Those wings have got to be used in display - I can't think of any other reason why the male should have them. Wonderful photos, video and story, Jorge and Rui. Thanks for sharing it with us.

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So many nice images that Jorge has, I'm a little envious:p.



Today I saw one male catching a little dipteran, as it happenedB). I will tell you how it happened:
I was watching the male hybotid, who was on an eucalyptus leaf and, as little creatures strolled by he reacted to them, following them with his eyes. When a small dipteran passed in front of him he focused on it and attached when the prey turned its back on him:o. It was amazing to see.



I also saw the "soft sex":D. Even though the female carried the male, it wasn't really soft (you will find out what I mean when I send a video to Jorge;)).

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what? this fly knows all kamasutra positions! :oB)
I'm waiting eagerly for those new videos. :)

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Photos from the habitat:

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Ulex spp. in full blossom. :D:P
The second photo shows precisely the site/local where we spotted the flies yesterday. :P

ah, almost I forgot... Thanks Tony and Pierre. :)

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more one video: http://www.youtub...VfeJQ3MP_8
:D

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new video on predation: http://www.youtub...W4BqHk7bY4

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... but the fly images you've shown are almost all on sandy ground!? Not much vegetation seen there.

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They pretty much walk around everywhere, but it's much less difficult to photograph them in the open area (blue circle) than in the middle of the vegetation (red circle).

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I notice that in the video where the male is mounted, he is also quite rigid - he doesn't appear to be using his front and rear legs to cling on, they are just stiffly outstretched.

In the predation video, the frantic action of the back legs reminds me of the madly wagging tails of lambs when they feed.

Fascinating stuff - well done you two.

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Thank you Susan:). Yes, the male never moved during the whole mating. But I wonder why the female caused all that agitation:|. Maybe to increase the chances of fertilization?

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On the last Wednesday (09/04/2008) I found several Tachydromia. Today this dead female has that strange white structure on the tip of the abdomen. What is it? Eggs? A parasite?

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Those are eggs.

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eggs, of course. :) As I told you in the email. :P

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Thanks:)

What do I do with the eggs? Put them in alcohol?

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If they are not dried out yet, please, do so.

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Ok, thank you Paul.

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Today I finally saw the beginning of a mating of Tachydromia:).
I've decided to fallow a male to see if I found anything new. After a few minutes, I saw him catching a small dipteran, and some more later a female approached and mating began at an amazing speed. I wasn't even able to tell who made the first move:o. When I finally made sense of what was going on, the female was feeding off the male's prey (did the male give it voluntarily, or did the female stole it?).
Unfortunately I couldn't manage to film the scene, it was too quick:(.



1- male feeding before the mating


2- mating (female with prey)

Another intresting thing happened before the mating. While the male was feeding, a spider tried to attack him. As a response, the male repeatedly lifted his abdomen trying to intimidate his opponent, and succeeded:). I only got to take one sloppy photo of this behaviour.


3- defensive behaviour


4- during the hottest part of the day, a female takes cover from the heat thanks to the vegetation


.

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"attenborough andrade" :D

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Today I started to look for Tachydromia at around 8 AM, until 6 PM. I only found 3 specimens. The adults are disappearing.
I found 2 females and 1 male, all of them in the afternoon. After several hours searching for specimens without success, I finally found the last two almost simultaneously at around 5.40 PM. Why is it? Chance?

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they are not tolerable to the heat, maybe.

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Yes, I think you are right Jorge.

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and today it was found this spectacular Tachydromia... ;)
Tomorrow more new photos by Andrade.

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Yes, this amazing Tachydromia is back! (with Austrian accent):D

Female


Male


Male with prey

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Hi,

I've been registering the behavior of this species and below you can see some of the most interesting videos:).

Mating behavior:

YouTube Video


YouTube Video


YouTube Video


A male Tachydromia sp. steals a prey from another male (please pay attention to the first second of the video:D):

YouTube Video


Two males:

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I think there is a problem:(. Paul?

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check the html...




[youtube] < URL > [ /youtube]

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Thank you Jorge. I don't understand what is the problem:(. I did what you suggested.

Since it's not working, I've put in the links.

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YouTube button works by only adding the YouTube clip ID between the tags. Not the whole url.

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Thanks Paul;)

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I'm very happy to announce that this species has now been published under the name Ariasella lusitanica:).

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Congratulations Rui! But who described the species and in which journal?

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Thanks Jan:). The authors of the article are Patrick Grootaert, Igor Shamshev and me, and it was published on the Bulletin of the Royal Belgian Society of Entomology.

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Congrats Rui ! All the best ! Fantastic news !
Andrzej

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Thank you Andrzej:D! This is a superinteresting species, I'm studying its behaviour and I hope to find many things about it.;)

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Congrats, Andrade!!

I updated my flickr with the new species name. http://www.flickr...882540311/

when will be ready your article on behaviour of this Ariasella?

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Do you have a pdf for us to download perhaps? :)

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I only have a preliminar pdf. The final version I do not have yet.

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I am a member of the Royal Belgian Society of Entomology. If Rui or Jorge don't have the final version, I can try to scan it.

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Thanks, jorgen. However I think Andrade has the final version. Soon he will give it. Maybe it will be available here in the DI.

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I have a scanned version of the article which I just sent to Paul:). The behaviour article is going to take a little while more, I'm still going to make some more observations:P.

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http://www.dipter...?cat_id=24

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So in Rui's photograph of the male of this species above, the rod-like structures emerging from the thorax are vestiges of the first pair of wings, and not the halteres? Only it would be interesting to put it mildly, if there was a fly with completely absent wings, but halteres still extant!

(Now awaits someone to tell me that such a fly species actually exists ... !!!)

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Chionea (Limoniidae) has halteres but no wings. Chironomidae with reduced wings may or may not have halteres.

http://www.dipter...to_id=6855

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The paper on the behaviour of this species is finally out. It was published in the Bulletin of the Royal Belgian entomological Society. Hopefully Paul will soon put it online here on diptera.info.:)

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It can be found HERE. Thanks for submitting it for download. :D

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The habit of males mounting males reminds me of the genus Chasmatonotus of Chironomidae. This genus is winged but does not like to fly. It probably evolved on isolated mountaintops during an ice age. According to a paper I read,

"The adults scurry around on the leaves of broad-leafed plants, shrubs and small trees within the habitat sites. When two adults encounter each other they 'tumble' together for a second or two before moving on. As the adults do no swarm for the purpose of mating, this behavior is probably associated with identifying a possible mate."

Possibly the habit of mounting everything in sight is typical of Diptera that do not fly.