---

Hi,
This small grey fly fed on Tripleurospermum maritimum florets yesterday. It looks a bit sarcophagid-like, but it is so small, and I feel it could be a Tachinid as well. So I hope for help!
Thanks, Sundew

---

I think Sarcophagid. There are flies from 4mm to 2o mm with this pattern.

---

checkered abdomen, traffic red eyes, usually sarcophagids has worn wings (not useful feature, of course), vittae on scutum fits for a sarcophagid too. I think it is a female because pulvilli are very small in this specimen.

---

I agree, of course, that all the mentioned features point to Sarcophagidae, but in the Tachinidae gallery there are several species with red eyes and a rather similar body pattern, too.
So you would see no subscutellum in the pic below? That would convince me to accept one of the smallest sarcophagids ever known :D!

---

THIS photos change my opinion. Tachinidae. It has subscutellum! :o

---

I am willing to be proven wrong but I am not sure that photo shows a subscutellum at all. All I see is a paler strip below the scutellum, which could be just the membrane between the scutellum and tergite 1. To be sure I think we'd have to see more of it or see it from the side :)

---

it really seems to be a subscutellum. :)

---

Maybe an enlargement of the photo in the first post (top right) would help, as it seems to be looking down from a better angle? Everything else about the fly says "sarcophagid" to me but there are some dexiines that can look very similar.

---

Maybe an enlargement of the photo in the first post (top right) would help, as it seems to be looking down from a better angle? Everything else about the fly says "sarcophagid" to me but there are some dexiines that can look very similar.

---

Here come all the other pics I have that might enlighten the case, good and less good, and though they are many, the region below the scutellum is still obscure. If the grey part is a membrane, it is more or less perpendicular if the fly bows down, and gets folded if it straightens. In folded state, it would look like a somewhat bulging but not protruding subscutellum. In any case there is some space between scutellum and abdomen.
You have the trained eyes - make the best of the stuff...
I wished we could ask Theo, too!
Regards, Sundew

---

not tachinid. :( It is a membrane. Chris had reason.

---

Thanks Sundew - that confirms it - no subscutellum - Sarcophagidae. What you are seeing is a membrane below the scutellum and the pollinose/grey part of the thorax that slopes down towards where it joins T1. :)

---

Well, Chris, you seem to be relieved... But I promise: the next small grey and black one will be a true Tachinid (it is already waiting!)
Many thanks for all efforts, Sundew