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Well these things have been in a number of traps, 1.5 to 2.5 mm, June-July 2008, Malaise trap in Wetland Kerkini Northern Greece, a bog at 1485 metres a.s.l. I have ruled out Ephydridae because of the presence of P-bristles, Drosophilidae because the P-bristles diverge, and Aulucigastridae because the F-bristles craoo each other, but somewhere I have gone wrong, because they must be something. The antennae are long rays above.

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A closer view of the head.

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And an alternative view of the head, my apollogies for the poor quality of the images. My thanks to you all.

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Have you checked with Camillidae?

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According to Oosterbroek the P-bristles should be converging for Camillidae, these are slightly diverging.

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Are we sure this isn't Ephydridae? Sure, the general shape is odd for an Ephydrid, but the curved spine on 2nd antennal segment immediately makes me to think of Ephydridae: Notophilini.
I haven't got Oosterbroek here right now, but I have read that some Notophilini species have diverging pseudo-P's. Could these be pseudo-P's?

A lot of other characters support Ephydridae IMHO - arista plumose with cilia on upper side only, no preapicals on tibia, costa with H and Sc breaks, Bm-Cu absent, no anal vein.

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I'd say an Ephydridae: strong pedicellar spines plus spines on second costal section are very common for them.

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And those spines on the Costa between H and Sc break just screams Ephydridae to me... Glad you agree, Nosferatumyia.

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Ephydridae was the first thing I told Gordon in an email much earlir, when i only had seen the head pictures. :D

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Ephydridae most likely, genus Ditrichophora, try to apply to Tony Irwin, maybe he can determine it better

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I have an eye on this one - I will compare it to some of the Ditrichophora I have already extracted from alcohol from Kerkini. Have been very busy recently, so not much time for microscope work!

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OK Thanks everybody,
I bow to majority opinion, I shall send them all to Tony. But I have a question. What are the bristles I have determined as P-bristles? Or is Oosterbroek wrong and some Ephydrids do have P-bristles?

Gordon

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Apparently the post-ocellars are absent in ephydrids. However some species have enlarged ocellars that are set back behind the posterior ocelli. They are called pseudopostocellars. Please don't ask me why they're not post-ocellars. I don't know. :|

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For the terminology of bristles to be stringent, it cannot refer to bristles simply by their position - it must reflect the devolopmental origin of those bristles. If those bristles that on this fly is situated behind the ocelli geneticically and developmentally are the same thing as those usually found at the ocelli - and which are called ocellars - in other families - then they cannot be called post-ocellars. To apply the term pseudopostocellars for ocelars that have moved to the place where postocellars are usually found seems as a smart thing to to. It would completely screw up things if we would try to do an phylogenetic analysis of these guys based on morphological characters. I'm happy that someone sometimes investigated and found out that what seem to be postocellars in some Ephydrids really is ocellars that have shifted positition.

Sometimes it is easy to think that we should simplify the terminology to make it easier to understand. But we would lose a lot of information on the phylogenetic relationships between organisms.

A bat's wing, a fly's wing and a bird's wings are not homologous, they do not share the same origin, even if the english word "wing" comprises them all. If I had to do an phylogenetic analysis of those, I wouldn't just call the character "wings present", I would have to develop the terminology a bit more than that...

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OK, thanks Tony and Viktor,

I will send Tony the flies. Tony you said when you first received the Ephydrids I sent that it included other families, I am wondering what other families, and what will you do with them?

Gordon

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Hi Gordon - with very few exceptions, the non-ephydrids were Meoneura (Carnidae), which I have passed to Irina. I will send any other odd ones off to the relevant people when I have finished sorting the latest batch.

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Thanks Tony,
I have a number of tubes for you, but I want to do a rush through a few more of the bottles left from 2007 before I send any more out.