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Posted by DJHiker on 09-09-2015 22:38

At first I thought this was a Syrphidae (female) species, but when I looked closer at the wing pattern it didn’t look very much like that of a hover fly.
Any suggestions?
Location: Plitvicki Ljeskovac, inland Croatia. Alt. approx.. 650m
Best regards,
David

Posted by DJHiker on 10-09-2015 21:21

According to Fauna Europaea, the two Villa species present in Croatia are V. cingulata and V. hottentotta.
When I look at internet images of the females of these two species -to me- they both qualify.
Does my photo show enough detail to allow a specific id?
Regards,
David

Posted by DJHiker on 10-09-2015 21:37

P.S. On the Aramel site http://aramel.fre...#39;.shtml I found a specimen that really looks identical to the one I observed.
Unfortunately only identified as Villa sp. :(
So I am afraid that this will be the fate of mine as well….

Posted by Sundew on 10-09-2015 22:01

Villa is extremely tricky, as is quickly learned when one reads the older threads (use the "Forum Search" function extensively, it is VERY informative!). Our Bombyliidae expert David Gibbs has not been active in the forum for more than one year, so I can only cite him:
"not safe to name most Villa from Mediterranean without a series of specimens in good condition and even then it is often difficult to arrive at a decision"
"one thing I can say for certain, any photo of this group of Villa which has not been collected, and in the case of males dissected, is very unlikely to be reliably named. Even specimens are very difficult to name and this will remain the case until the whole genus is revised"
So your nice fly will indeed remain Villa spec.
BTW, the Aramel website gives a lot of information, but unfortunately it is rich in errors. Our experts convinced me that there are more reliable ones (e. g. this one ;).)
Regards, Sundew