British Tephritidae Recording Scheme

[Laurence Clemons]

A new set of distribution maps has been saved as a pdf file at

http://www.dipteristsforum.org.uk/do...MAPS_SEP08.pdf

Please help fill in the gaps by sending me any additional records.

[poschiavanus]

Marvellous.

We all owe you a debt for your work on this over the years.

poschiavanus

[Jason Green]

Very interesting.

Do you have images of these species at all, or know of any books that feature the said species, or ID keys?

Personally this would help me when looking for them 'in the field'.

[Laurence Clemons]

I have old photos i.e. taken with print film of pinned specimens of the majority of British species but they would not reproduce well unless drastically edited with a graphics program. The two main keyworks I use are the Royal Entomological Society Handbook on Tephritid flies by Ian White, published in 1988 (3 more species since then) and Insecta Helvetica Tephritidae by Bernhard Merz published in 1994 (in German). None of these features pictures of the entire insect but show the wing patterns of most species covered.

[poschiavanus]

Following on from a thread of a few months ago I went and bought the RES key to Tephritidae. It is still available from places like NHBS and the FSC, and is inexpensive. Not only does this have detailed keys, but it has photographs of the wings of most species.

A more extensive key to species of NW Europe in German is available from the Swiss National Fauna centre at Neuchatel.

Also useful is the PDF by Seguy of the Faune de France series available at the Digital Library. This is some 80 years old, but still contains useful information. In French of course.

There is a reasonable range of Tephritid pictures on WAB, and several WAB contributors have pictures of Flickr. Another good source is Diptera Info, particularly the gallery section.

For those tephritids (around 20 in the UK) which cause galls the FSC Plant Gall Key by Redfern et al. is useful. The smaller number of leaf-miners are covered at British Leaf Mines, and the Leaf and Stem Mines of British Flies.

For an idea of the biology of some tephritids, Margaret Redfern's little book "Insects on Thistles" in the Naturalists Handbook series is thoroughly recommended.

poschiavanus

[Jason Green]

Thanks for the links and information Laurence and Poschiavanus, very useful

[poschiavanus]

I'll try and add more to this thread: I've noticed Pudding4Brains (Arp) doing this with myriapods and woodlice, and seems a good idea.

So here's a few to start with (all WAB pictures):

Anomoia purmunda: larvae feed in fruits of trees and shrubs of rose family. Wing pattern very distinctive.



Celery Fly Euleia heraclei: larvae leaf-mine umbellifers, including celery, hogweed and angelica.




Goniglossum wiedemanni: larvae feed in fruits of White Bryony.





Terellia longicauda: larvae in flower heads of woolly thistle Cirsium eriophorum.




Terellia serratulae: larvae in flower heads of thistles.


Terellia tussilaginis: galls in flower heads of burdocks.





Trupanea stellata: Usually larvae in flower heads of ragworts.

[poschiavanus]

And a couple more (to get over 20 picture limit):

Urophora stylata: causes galls in flower heads of thistles.





Xyphosia miliaria: larvae feed in stems on thistles.

[Jason Green]

Poschiavanus: Great idea, thankyou! They're a very attractive family in Diptera.

[JonSadler]

Hi Laurence/Poschiavanus,

What a great group...definitely worth looking at. Thanks for the information.

Cheers
Jon