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Hello.

I photographed this pair of Bibionidae to Lunel-Viel - Herault (France) on 10.10.2016.

I captured a male the next day. Length: 6 mm.

Is it possible to name the species?

Sorry for the poor quality photographic : A lot of wind...

Thank you for your help.


Jean-Jacques PORTENEUVE : France : Lunel-Viel : 34400 : 10/10/2016
Altitude : 11 m - Taille : Environ 6 et 8 mm

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Hello and welcome to the forum!
You start with a difficult question, because, as you admit, the pictures are a bit blurred. We have to discriminate between Bibio and Dilophus by means of the shape of the front tibiae. In Bibio, the front tibia ends in a single large spine on outer side with a smaller movable spine on the inner side; there are no groups of spines in the middle. The Dilophus tibia shows an apical ring of 7-9 stout spines and an additional group of 1-4 spines in the middle. The ring is difficult to see, but here are middle spines. Furthermore, I see spines on the pronotum of the male, which is also typical for Dilophus.
According to the Fauna Europaea, you have 8 Dilophus species in France. One I can exclude because of black females. For the others we need an expert! You saw them surprisingly late in autumn...
Let us hope for Theo Zeegers's help to get more information.
Regards, Sundew

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Yes, it is Dilophus.

the darkened wing in female suggest febrilis, however, the reddish parts on thorax do not. So I am not sure

Theo

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Thank you for your answers ! ;)

What would you think of Dilophus bispinosus ?

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That is the one it is most certainly not

[it is not a guessing competition ! ]


Theo

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Ok, sorry, this proposal was made for me and some pictures on the web looked good match...

https://www.googl...Cb8QsAQIJQ

So Dilophus sp.

Thanks :)

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On the other hand, we have a series of pictures on flicker (https://www.flick...otostream/) which seems to be a species of autumn with similar traits.

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Pierre, to Dilophus standards: that female is much more orange. Moreover, the wings are clear.
Exactly the resasons why this cannot be bispinosus, in my opinion.

Theo

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Sorry for interfering, but I need to say something...

Caracal, Pierred, even if you compare pictures in the net, trying to ID Dilophus this way is very 'dangerous' ;) First because you cannot trust blindly what you see in the net (in general terms, there are many erroneous IDs, some being real blunders; the net is filled with 'wild guessing' IDs that bring even more mistakes, and I am not talking just about Bibionidae) but also because in the case of Dilophus, males only can be IDed through genitalia and females are at the same time variable and most species too similar. Particular morphological details well in focus would be necessary to IDed them and just through pictures there is usually a shadow of doubt.

I am not an expert in Bibionidae but I have dealt with them enough to be completely with Theo: Dilophus sp. is the only name that can be given through those pictures.

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Thank you very much for your response, I content myself with Dilophus sp. :)!

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In the mean time, Christoophe has examined a male specimen and concludes this could be Dilophus antipedalis.

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Finally, one member of the forum examined the genitalia of a male specimen and concludes it is Dilophus clavicornus.

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That's a European first, isn't it ?

Theo

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Indeed. The species was described from Israel. On the other hand, the collegue examining the specimen told us he had already seen specimens from Greece, Montenegro and even from France (near Montpellier).