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Berlin - July 2019

I noticed a fly prancing around on the flowers of our balcony this evening. I managed to get a photo o it. I've seen them before but this time i have a photo. I think that could be Scatella species but i'm not sure. I have no material about Ephydridae. I'm hoping that someone can confirm the family and maybe the genus too.

Thank you.

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This is a Scatophila species - the costa stops at vein R4+5. In Scatella the costa continues to vein M. I'm not sure which species - if you had some other photos, or ideally a specimen, we might be able to say.

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Thank you, Tony. I will look for more today and hopefully we have a specimen or two. I know nothing about this family so your info is very valuable to me. Thank you for the tip about the costa.

i think that it is less than 2mm. i had trouble making photos of it. I see alot of small flies around the flowers so i hope that i can find more today or tomorrow. I will will come back to this post when i can show more...

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okay, i have a specimen now. I don't know when i can examine it. Maybe tomorrow but my recent Chlorpoidae find comes first. Anyway, i will examine the specimen soon, then return with some microscopic photos.

i do not have keys so it will be most important to know what i should photograph particularly for identification. Also can both males and females be identified and identified by genitalia?

i was unable to make clear photos again because it was on the street side of my flower box. I had to lean over the balcony a bit to try to get a photo but my shoulder is not well enough for this angle. I only got partial focus.

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For Scatophila, it's best to photograph the face (from slightly above and to one side), a lateral view of head, thorax and abdomen, a dorsal shot of the thorax, and a wing. Even then we may need to hope it's a male and dissect the genitalia.

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okay. Thanks Tony. :)

I tried to find keys and ended up finding a pdf from Drake 2006 and i found a document about noctua group from Dr. Ozerov. Incidentally, i tried to key it by photo using Drake and i end up at S. cribrata. The notes mention 3-4 strong dc but i only see two. Yet the abdomen is strongly dusted and the wings clearly have a pattern, so cribrata is where i end up. I will examine the specimen and post some photos. I believe that i have a male, so whew! :)

I shall return when i have microscopic material.

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i've looked at the female and what i believe to be a male.

i will now post photos of the supposed male for you to view. I have to admit that i find the keys from Drake to be quite mystifying if this is a Scatophila because the abdomen is gray and brown. His keys start with abdomen shining black or dusted and only fifth tergite black. I have my glasses on and i do not see black. I am frustrated with Drake. I'd prefer better keys if you know of any in existence. Drake is making me mad.

Anyway, here are the photos to get the ball rolling with this species.

here is a photo of the face of what should be a male.

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here is the abdomen which is NOT black. hello, Drake?
i describe it as being gray and brown or taupe if you will.

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the wing and the costa does not reach m vein.

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bit of a lateral view of the thoracic bristles

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dorsal view of gray and brown abdomen.

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lateral view with my other microscope which is not very good. sorry.

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this is a profile view of the female head. The head of the male is quite similar.

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so are we able to make any progress with this?
i end up at cribrata and it doesn't match in my opinion and i end up at the unseen tetra. The keys are not helpful to me so maybe you have seen this before?

Thank you very much.

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To be fair to Martin, he did preface his Scatophila key with a warning, that it didn't really work! But you should have got the answer straight away - the face of the male has a concave depression. It is Scatophila caviceps. As you have a male, you can check the genitalia. This is quite a fiddly job, as they are very small. I would recommend taking off the whole abdomen, soak it in potassium hydroxide overnight, then use micropins (mounted in matchsticks) to tweak out the genitalia so that the internal structures can be seen. Don't attempt to do a full dissection - it will not end well!

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"[Zatwarnicki - brown mesonotum with two narrow presutural grey stripes between ac and dc, narrow post-sutural stripe outside posterior dc; scutellum brown, often with basal and apical grey spots. Nartshuk - Face of male concave, reddish brown; genae and frons grey. My notes – acs large, 3-4 paris; haltere yellow] "

this is what i thought was the description for cribrata. so the bold name caviceps is above the description? for some reason, i thought the name is supposed to be at the end of the description. like so:
bla bla bla ... caviceps

so, then, i keyed it to caviceps but read the name cribrata instead.

meantime, i looked at the specimen and yes the genitalia are very small. I have trouble with tiny flies too. I'll take my time with this one.

one more thing, if the description that i have posted here is for caviceps, then the keys work. However, the names should come after the description not before it.

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Hello Tony,

i've finished dissection today and from what i can see it matches caviceps well.
i use oil to clear the genitalia but it floats around too much for a day or two. so i cannot get good photos.
i will attach what i have in oil plus wing and face.

Thank you for your help.