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I think this may be an Anthrax anthrax with reduced wing shading but not sure how varying this feature is within the species. It was found in a Bee Hotel in Antrim, Co Antrim Northern Ireland last year. Any thoughts other than Anthrax anthrax? There was a Key online Nederlands
Bee-flies (Diptera: Bombyliidae) of Northwest Europe suggests with this reduced shading may not be A.anthrax so rather puzzled.

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Another Angle of the specimen.

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Hello Ryan,

This is intriguing. It's a female Anthrax species. A. anthrax varies a lot but in the detail of the markings rather than a lot of colour missing. But recently emerged flies have pale wings and take about an hour to attain their full colour. What was this one actually doing? Was it dead?

Michael

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Hi Ryan, if you take all the pale grey areas of the wings and imagine them being dark brown, I think you end up with markings that are consistent with A. anthrax. If that is the case then as Michael suggests it seems likely to be a recently emerged individual, or else a very unusual form with reduced markings.

I'm not an expert on bee-flies outside the UK, but I can't see any better matches in John Smit's key for the Netherlands/Belgium species.

It's an amazing record for Northern Ireland in any case! Although presumably a human-assisted import?

In 2019 it was breeding successfully in at least one site in southern England.

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Hello Ryan,

I'm hesitant chip in here as Martin is far more knowledgeable than I but may I suggest A.trifascatus which occurs in Europe?
Like Martin I'm not an expert but it looks suspiciously like it to me and is one of several species of Anthrax that we might reasonably expect to appear in UK soon. The trouble with recently emerged individuals is that I understand that the wings are generally pale overall.
We need an expert here.
But Martin is right; if you imagine the grey areas as brown A. anthrax it is.

Michael

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If this was A. trifasciatus I would expect to see a transparent area on the basal side of the cross-vein R-M (i.e. part of the first basal cell would be transparent), which Ryan's fly doesn't have. Compare with Kahis' photo in the gallery:
https://diptera.i...to_id=2134

So I'm still of the opinion that this is likely to be A. anthrax. Would be good to hear from any of our continental colleagues who have more experience of these species!

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Hello everyone,

As a continental colleague I can confirm this is indeed Anthrax anthrax. I've seen a quite similar photo of a specimen from the Netherlands.

Kind regards,
Ectemnius