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Hello!

Still many flies on tree trunks today (and the blackberries are blooming, attracting the still active Episyrphus balteatus). Is this one Phaonia rufiventris? Thanks in advance!

[Edit]
I forgot: found today in Ostwestfalen/Germany.

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Hi J?rgen
I think you have two species here. My guess (I can't be sure) is that the top two are Phaonia subventa. The bottom two may be Phaonia bitincta, but without specimens to hand, it's tricky - and let's not forget the possibility of Mydaea maculiventris. :( As Robert has suggested before, this is a difficult group, and we need to keep taking good photos of collected specimens. I will try this winter to sort out some other characters which can be used to separate them.

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Hello, Tony!



Thanks, but that would have been very tricky - because all photos show the same individual... B)

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I don't think so.
The top fly has broadly darkened base of scutellum and the post-alar callli are grey. Also the presutural dark stripes are two-thirds the width of the pale stripe separating them, and the abdomen has a dark central line.
The lower fly has an almost entirely yellow scutellum and the post-alar calli are yellow. The central presutural dark stripes are only a third of the width of the pale stripe separating them, and the abdomen is entirely yellow.
And it's lost its right mid tarsus.
I think the flies are so keen to get in your photos that they are pushing each other out of the way! ;)

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The scutellum and (dorsal part of) abdomen is darker on the first two photos!?

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Hello, Tony!



Then the two have fooled me... ;-). I remember, that the fly flew away and came back immediately to almost the same point. But that must have been another fly... Very tricky those Muscidae... ;)