Is this a Tachinid fly

[Jason Green]

Ah, relative hair-length on the flags! So, what makes this one Helina as opposed t... only joking! Would be helpful to know though.

[JRsbugs]

What I usually do is get up a good pic of one I know will be correct, which looks like a fly I have.

I then visually check over all the bristles in certain places, thorax, legs, abdomen, katepisternum, head, as well as wing venation if visible. Of course if you have keys that would be even better, but if these things all look correct then I'm fairly happy.

If there's any doubt I usually put it up for ID, after a (long) while things fall into place and you find you get more correct. It really depends a lot on how serious you are about it, for myself I like them to be correctly named, but if I happen to have made a mistake it's not the end of the world. But as said, if I have doubts I usually put them up for ID.

There are a few things which you might want to research, all the names of where to look can be found if you wish in the glossary. Once you get a little more comfortable with what you are looking at you might not need to look them up. Some other terms can be found on other sites if you look.

Once more, Peter has enabled provision of some useful clues. The tricky part is understanding (and remembering) those clues.

[Bruce Williams]

Thanks Janet .

Bruce

[Tormentil]

Originally Posted by Jason Green

There seem to be at least 38 Helina spp. in for the UK, so what I'm really trying to get at here is what has excluded Colin's fly more specifically from the other 37+.

I have one that looks similar, and would just like to know the more technical points that make it impuncta as opposed to one of the others

Ask Laurence.
He's the kidda fer flies. It's just unfortunate that he aint been one fer a while.

[oxycera]

Originally Posted by Tormentil

Ask Laurence.
He's the kidda fer flies. It's just unfortunate that he aint been one fer a while.

No doubt because he knows just how difficult muscids are to id, especially from photos and particularly genera like Helina. Jason is quite right to be a bit sceptical.
Anthomyiids are relatively straightforward on male genital characteristics.