Thread subject: Diptera.info :: cf. Eriopterodes (Limoniidae) from Suriname

Posted by Auke on 12-06-2020 21:39
#1

Please help to ID this flag-legged mosquito.

Title edited.

Edited by Auke on 13-06-2020 02:43

Posted by Jan Willem on 12-06-2020 21:54
#2

Some kind of Limoniidae????

Posted by John Carr on 13-06-2020 00:17
#3

Based on a quick check of Manual of Central American Diptera, I suggest Eriopterodes which has mid and hind legs well separated and legs with conspicuous ornamentation.

Posted by Auke on 13-06-2020 02:42
#4

Thanks again! Now filed as cf. Eriopterodes.

Posted by John Carr on 13-06-2020 13:38
#5

It doesn't match the description of either species of Eriopterodes so it is probably another genus in the same group. Alexander mentions two others that can have scales on the legs: Empeda and Gymnastes.

Posted by Auke on 13-06-2020 18:47
#6

Searching for images of these three genera (with Empeda as a subgenus of Cheilotrichia) with Google turns up no species with anything close to the ornamentation my fly has on its legs (most specimens in BOLD have no legs at all).

BOLD places these genera in Chioneinae, while Bugguide skips the level of subfamily and places Cheilotrichia directly in the tribe Eriopterini. What is the lowest taxonomic level you would still consider accurate?

Posted by John Carr on 13-06-2020 22:19
#7

BugGuide is using the tribal names of Alexander, used in a large majority of literature on American crane flies. By the rules of nomenclature, a tribe or subfamily containing both Chionea and Erioptera should be called Chioneini or Chioneinae. That's because somebody thought Chionea was so unusual it deserved its own family group name early on in the history of nomenclature. Later it was discovered to be a heavily modified member of another group. (Michener points out the same problem in bees: Hemihalictus was so unusual it was named early, but it is just a member of a well known genus that happened to have lost a wing vein.)

I believe your fly is close to Erioptera based on what I can see of the wing veins and the large gap between mid and hind legs. Alexander called this group the "pot-bellied Eriopterini".

Posted by Dmitry Gavryushin on 15-06-2020 13:43
#8

Molophilus (Eumolophilus), apparently mimics culicids of the genus Sabethes

Posted by Auke on 17-06-2020 23:36
#9

Thanks, file name changed to Molophilus (Eumolophilus).

What would be the advantage of mimicking a mosquito?