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Hi,

I'm an amateur and entirely new to diptera.
I'm keen to learn however and willing to have a go at key'ing things out.
I've been trying to id the crane fly below.
My progress is slow, partly because I'm still getting my head around the 'code' for wing veins.

I couldn't find any online keys to British crane flies, though found a US one http://iz.carnegi...idkeys.htm.

This key requires I know my R, Sc1 and Rs veins.

Can anyone tell me i) name of my fly ii) Did I get the veins correct (photo to follow) ?

( Just from browsing pictures of crane flies on the web I guessed at nephrotomoa but in key above this should have 'short Rs'. Assuming I'm looking at correct vein, mine doesn't obviously fit this description)

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...apologies - I'm new here and struggling to get an image to show (as per the FAQ it's <600pixels, only 20kB, 72dpi, jpeg and lowercase without spaces! - so I'm not sure what's going on)

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...finally...and here's the wing

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I might be wrong, but it looks like a limoniidae, I think... you might want to check in that direction, until you get a more competent opinion than mine.
Philippe

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There are some very good test keys to UK crane flies (inc Limoniidae) on the Dipterists Forum website. But I think this is in the members only section? Still if one is interested in UK crane flies (or any other Diptera for that matter) this is worth the very modest membership fee.

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Hello,

try to get hold of "Flies of the British Isles". It is perhaps a little bit old, but I still regard is as a kind of Bible. It is full of useful information about two winged insects.
Also wingvenation is treated nicely in the work. I like it a lot. It really belongs on the bookshelves of a fly-hunter.

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Wing points to Limonia, rings at the apex of femora are present at least in L. nubeculata, (reasonable in case it was in a cave) but there are more possible species
Regards

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Oosterbroek's Ctenophorinae key and the UK test keys of Stubbs are available with permission of the authors on the site of Louis Boumans.

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Jorgen, thanks for the link. Always handy to have these keys ready. I have too little literature about the nematocera

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I was looking at the dutch keys of the Tipulidae. The first key I purchased, many years ago, when I was still at high school, was the dutch Tipulidae key. It was a second hand copy, because it was sold out already. I was never able to understand why not a new edition of such a key was published. The family is very interesting, economically very important and, perhaps is my impression incorrect, the familiy isn't that difficult so also beginners of dipterology are able to identify the species.

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Here are Stubbs's draft keys!

http://www.dipter...flies.html

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Distal portions of femora with 3 dark annuli so Limonia nubeculosa (sic).