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Diptera.info :: Identification queries :: Diptera (adults)
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Conops vesicularis (was Conopid - Physocephala?)
ChrisR
#1 Print Post
Posted on 16-05-2009 20:18
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Is this nice conopid a Physocephala sp.? Smile Seen in southern England today Smile
ChrisR attached the following image:


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Edited by ChrisR on 07-06-2009 20:29
Manager of the UK Species Inventory in the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity at the Natural History Museum, London.
 
http://tachinidae.org.uk
phil withers
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Posted on 16-05-2009 23:32
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No, I think this is Conops vesicularis
 
ChrisR
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Posted on 16-05-2009 23:39
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Googling around, it does look like that could be the one ... a new species for me and it looked really unusual - being such a large, brown wasp mimic. Do you know its status in the UK? Is it unusual? Smile
Manager of the UK Species Inventory in the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity at the Natural History Museum, London.
 
http://tachinidae.org.uk
phil withers
#4 Print Post
Posted on 18-05-2009 12:09
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It is certainly striking, being so unlike the Conops-style one is used to that at first galnce I think one tends to ignore it as a wasp. Ken Smith said it was rare in England - I only ever caught one, but I think it is a lot earlier than the others, which might account for it.
 
ChrisR
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Posted on 18-05-2009 12:51
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Thanks Phil Smile It was certainly striking and very docile too ... I had tried to catch it in a net but failed, just prior to taking this photo. I slapped the net on top and it just fell off the leaf ... next time I walked past the bush it was back on a leaf again sunning itself! I guessed it was going to be distinctive enough to identify from a photo so decided to leave it in peace Smile
Manager of the UK Species Inventory in the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity at the Natural History Museum, London.
 
http://tachinidae.org.uk
conopid
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Posted on 08-06-2009 08:31
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Hi Chris,
I have searched for Conopidae for 25 years and last year I saw my first C vesicularis. Then incredibly, this year I saw three in one day at three separate locations, then a fourth one at a later date elsewhere! It is certainly rightly regarded as a scarce fly in the UK, but maybe it has enjoyed a bit of a surge in numbers this year?
Nigel Jones, Shrewsbury, United Kingdom
 
ChrisR
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Posted on 08-06-2009 09:43
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Well, this was definitely the first I have ever seen - it was quite striking. Smile

Last year I also bumped into 2 unusual species that seem to have been doing well recently - Stratiomys potamida and Mallota cimbiciformis. Also, many of the phasiine tachinids, like Cistogaster have been expanding their ranges Smile

It's not all good news though - we still have about 90 tachinids on our list with only 1 or 0 records ... many of which used to be commoner in the past (ie. we see them in collections but hardly ever get modern records for them).
Manager of the UK Species Inventory in the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity at the Natural History Museum, London.
 
http://tachinidae.org.uk
phil withers
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Posted on 08-06-2009 14:04
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Regarding the loss of tachinids: are the hosts (where known) also decreasing in range ?
 
ChrisR
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Posted on 08-06-2009 19:30
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Not really sure - very little is known about the rarer species. But most tachinids are not very host-specific so I would guess that there should be suitable hosts ... but perhaps not a suitable climate or habitat Smile
Manager of the UK Species Inventory in the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity at the Natural History Museum, London.
 
http://tachinidae.org.uk
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