Fly ID's please.

[rob158]

Hi,
I would like some help with these, Latin names would be nice, Thanks.


Trichocera forcipula?


Anisopodidae, Sylvicola fenestralis?






Sciaridae?


Sciaridae? Different view.


Psychodidae?


Tephritidae?


Tephritidae? Different view.


Tephritidae? Different view.

[Jason Green]

Good to see the approach, Rob - some of them will need keying.

I'll have more time to name some later.

[Jason Green]

Right...

Yes, Trichocera for the first. How did you come up with T. forcipula? That isn't British. By and large these are done on male genitalia. All external study though, thankfully! See the key here: http://www.dipteristsforum.org.uk/do...hoceriidae.pdf

Yes, Anisopodidae. It'll be a Sylvicola species, and may require study of external genitalia. See this key: Online Identification Keys - The Palaearctic species of Sylvicola (Diptera: Anisopodidae)

Another Trichoceridae species. Could be Trichocera regelationis/rufescens. Use the key linked above.

This one could be Heleomyzidae. Can you get a closer photograph?

I wouldn't like to say - certainly something in that sort of super-family area. How's that for hedging your bets!

Yes, Psychodidae. These are tricky. I believe a key was published not too many years back. They need a bit of preparation including wing-clearing and antennal-based study. Not a group I have an interest in, really.

The last three pictures attributed to a single fly look like the Ephydrid Limnellia quadrata, though I think there's another option I can't recall the name of.

Off now for a cup of tea!

[rob158]

Thanks for your help. Just started with flies and still a bit rubbish with them.

Yes, Trichocera for the first. How did you come up with T. forcipula?

I'm not sure, I must have seen the name somewhere and wrote it down as a possibility.

This one could be Heleomyzidae. Can you get a closer photograph?

Im not sure which one you want a better photo of.
One of these? 1 or 2?


1


2

Off now for a cup of tea!

Hope you enjoyed it.

[Jason Green]

Yes, that's the Heleomyzid-type thing a closer photograph of would be good. I should've nubered my responses, but generally each new line of my reply was attributed to a different insect in that order.

What are you keeping them in? As I said, it's good to see specimens being collected so you can fully-explore the diversity of often closely-related species. Let us know if you need any assistance with keying/anatomical terms.

You seem to know how to pin the stuff (often a challenge in itself - I remember the worries I had that precluded me starting for a while!), next step is to build some intuition and keying-out skills!

[rob158]

Originally Posted by Jason Green

Yes, that's the Heleomyzid-type thing a closer photograph of would be good. I should've nubered my responses, but generally each new line of my reply was attributed to a different insect in that order.

What are you keeping them in? As I said, it's good to see specimens being collected so you can fully-explore the diversity of often closely-related species. Let us know if you need any assistance with keying/anatomical terms.

You seem to know how to pin the stuff (often a challenge in itself - I remember the worries I had that precluded me starting for a while!), next step is to build some intuition and keying-out skills!

I just started collecting insects at the end of last year, I have a few specimens of 5 or 6 orders, I keep them pinned onto some polystyrene sheets, Pinning can be tricky, I've stuck pins into some things and they've just crumbled.
Do you collect insects also?

Here is a bit better photo, Is this the one you wanted? I didn't really know what angle you wanted to see it from.



And a close up on the wings of the fruit fly.




Or was it a better photo of this one you wanted?

[Jason Green]

Yes, the last one would be good.

Yes, I do collect - about 330 specimens this year. They include about ten I've found to be rarities, including two RDB3 species, and two or three more that seem to be so under-recorded that their status is a littlle unclear.

When you come to keying them, you'll find there's little else comparable with which to build real intuition. I swear by collecting a number of specimens of the same family and better-still a genus in the case of a difficult ones - before attempting to identify them. An isolated specimen, for example a single Andrena bee, will be trickier to identify with any real confidence without having a range of specimens to compare the points by which they differ. 'Comparative material' is the term, and one I utter frequently! It has enabled me to make confident identifications when the job-at-hand has often on the face of it, seemed insurmountable!

The UK has always had a great world-wide reputation and certain credability about it when it comes to entomology. The way we keep that going is by robust science, and collecting voucher specimens to build-up a certain level of competence when you can just see something briefly and say, 'That'll be something like...'. As I said, let us know of any points by which we can help. Be it morphological terms, keys, pinning-techniques, etc.