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Found this little lady dying on kitchen worktop. Who is she? Now composting nicely in a plant pot.
Regards Roger.

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Pic. 2

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Last rites

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I would say she is a winter crane fly (Trichoceridae).

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Thanks for that Jan Willem, I have 4 types on the old checklist; Trichocera annulata, T.hiemalis,T. regelationis and T.saltator. Anybody able to ID further. Photo's in Gallery not much help.
Regards Roger.

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Well, I'll try to say my opinion:

This is
NOT Trichocera annulata - abdomen has no visible dark bands
NOT T. saltator - ovipositor is too short for saltator
NOT T.regelationis - I don't see dark spot on r-m vein and distal tarsomeres are too long for regelationis

So T.hiemalis is what's left from your list, although I'm not absolutely sure about it too... This could well be something else :)

Andrius

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Thanks for that Andrius-I'd given up on this one. Nice to hear from Lithuania :).
Regards Roger

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I think it will be difficult/impossible to confirm this one :|, Alan Stubbs' key focuses on the males, and although he illustrates the female cerci the differences between the species are (to my eyes) very subtle (including a short-ovipositor form of T. saltator).

As you probably know there are at least 10 species of Trichocera in Britain, don't know how many of them could be present on Shetland.

Martin

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Hi,

Well, the best way in this case to confirm the species would be the preparation of genitalia. At least the four species from the Shetland list can be separated by the form of internal genital structures :)
As we were already told, the current specimen is already nearing it's omega point and coming back into the global energy cycle, so we will never know what that was :D

Andrius

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Hi
Isn't it great that at a time banks and politicians have us by the collective genitalia (without much thought),that we can spend so much time concerned with the genetalia of a fly that is no more than 8mm in length. We will never be politicians or bankers. Thankfully...Roger