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Well this is another fly from the now infamous Roupel Gorge Dead Dog Site Kerkini - Northern Greece. Photos taken on 25th Nov. 2009
Sorry they are not better, I'm still learning to use the new camera and these guys are small and nervous - I thought they might be Piophilids - but you know me.:| I have some in alcohol - so who wants them??

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2nd Photo

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And another for what it is worth.

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What not even a comment on family?:|

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Another piophilid...

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So I was right about the family for once:D - probably just a statistical anomaly:|

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Here is another photo I took today.

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Let's try: Quite similar to Stearibia nigripes, no orbitals, stubby ocellars, however frons, face and cheeks yellow: Prochyliza varipes.

Any objections? (not my specialty, but been id'ing some)

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By the way: you could have excellent experimental setting there when analyzing the succession of the cadaveric fauna and reporting visitors vs. breeders.

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Hi Jaakko,
Thanks for the ideas, I looked in the gallery and I agree it looks most like Prochyliza varipes, but not all 29 European species are illustrated. Do you have a key you could send me by any chance?;) If not would you be willing to check some specimens if nobody else asks for them? Prochyliza varipes is not in Fauna Europeae so I have no idea if it has been recorded from Greece before.

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Fauna Europeae has a Liopiophila varipes as do some papers here and there on Piophilid ecology, see http://www.bonduriansky.net/EE-1999.pdf . But http://kielo.luomus.fi/laji/?t=Piophila%20varipes&l=en agrees with Prochyliza varipes and has Piophila varipes as a synonym. What say the experts here??:o

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Hi,

I use McAlpine JF. 1977: A revised classification of the Piophilidae, including 'Neottiophilidae' and 'Thyreophoridae'. I think it is the only one having all finnish species for instance. I also have some british key and Bei-Bienko, but both quite limited and B-B also outdated.

In McAlpine, P. varipes is in Liopiophila, but the Finnish check-list I'm using uses the nomeclature recommended by Zuska (1984) in the Catalogue of Palearctic Diptera. Unfortunately, I don't have the book scanned to send you, but I can happily determine some specimens.

There are only few Piophilids that are this naked, so I would be quite confident with the ID.

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Ozerov (2004) made some comments about the classification later. I don't have the paper here:
i4;k9;kll6;k4;, h0;.i1;. [Ozerov, A.L.], 2004. i0; l2;l3;k2;l9;l9;l0;m2;l0;l2;k2;m4;l0;l0; k6;k4;m1;l2;lml3;mm3; l9;kl4;kl1;l9;m0;k4;k2; Piophilidae [On classification of family Piophilidae (Diptera)]. – h7;l6;l6;l3;l6;k5;l0;m5;kl9;l2;l0;l1; h6;m1;ll5;k2;&a#1083; [Zoolocheskii Zhurnal] 83(11): 1353-1360. [In Russian.]

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Wow Paul you remember all that - is it some sort of secret dipterist's code I have to pass a special initiation in order to be given the key for.:D

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Maybe he has Argot Hormones :P ( another anagram Walter) but fitting for the reply.

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Well, the vial with flies turned out to be a can of worms:
Three types of specimens, all readily identified with McAlpine's key as Prochyliza.
1. Five male running more or less smoothly to P. nigricornis, though the fore coxae are not completely black (but McAlpine's key does not state they have to be completely black).
2. One male and one female differing in having yellow anterior coxae and yellow genae. Ordinarilly 'we Europeans' would then call it nigrimana, but according to McAlpine that species hass a largely yellow frons but this specimen has a frons that is only narrowly yellow anteriorly. That leaves us with the Nearctic brevicornis, a newly described species I am unaware of (I know two species of Allopiophila, one from Switzerland and one from Hungary), or an undescribed species.
3. Twelve females that would readily key out as P. nigrimana IF they did not allhave the anterior coxae darkened to some extent. Interestingly enough, the darkening varies from just a small patch anterobasally in some specimens to extensively darkened anteriorly and laterally in others.
Unfortunately, I do not have any papers here that might tell me more about the intraspecific variation of the colour of the for coxae, so for the moment you will have to be satisfied with this preliminary report.

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Thanks Paul,
I will wait in the hope of a definitive determination some time in the distant future.

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There was one male of Prochyliza in the vial with Centrophlebomyia that ran to nigricornis much better than the ones mentioned above: The fore coxae were completely black and the legs were more extensively blackened as well. I guess I have to try to dig up illustrations of the genitalia of the European species to get reliable ID's...