Thread subject: Diptera.info :: Calliphoridae. Help id, please.

Posted by johnes81 on 22-03-2018 12:51
#6

Hello Eugene, you can call me John. All is good.

the five bristles that you refer to in your post are actually dorsocentral (dc) bristles. the first two setae are pre-sutural bristles. Meaning that the bristles exist before the suture. the bristles placed after the suture are referred to as post sutural bristles. acrostichal bristles (ac setae or hairs) are the point of focus with Lucilia. I am not an entomologist either. I just love nature and i study entomology on my own. I love to photograph, study and interact with nature. I call what i do field biology but this topic allready exists. Anyway, here is a link to a drawing of the seate:

https://diptera.info/infusions/terms/terms.php?op=view&id=269

most times we just shorten the names to ac or dc. dc can be just as important with many other types of flies. one other thing to mention is that hairs are usually considered to be fine and have no eyelet/socket. Bristles are generally thicker and have a socket/eyelet where they attach to the body. Regarding Lucilia, if one of these bristles is missing, then you may still be able to count it based upon visibility of a socket.

Back to the fly: i see only two ac. refer to the five bristles that you see. the five bristles are the dc row. behind it begin the two rows of ac bristles. you should see that there are only two post acrostichal bristles. also two pre sutural ac bristles. I suspect that this is a male Lucilia caesar but i can only recommend that we call it Lucilia cf caesar male. The eyes are very close together which is a strong indicator of caesar. The hypopygium can help identify caesar because it is much larger than the similar illustris and ampullacea. However, this is not visible in these photos.

I hope that you have a pleasant day :)