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Hi,
The recent thread by Nick (http://www.dipter...d_id=32003) I found very interesting! I remembered to have also a very big bluish Sarcophagid in store, photographed in May 2008. Here it is. The palpi are dark and bear long hairs. So I suppose this is also a Brachicoma devia. A short confirmation or correction would be nice.
Thanks, Sundew

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Well, meanwhile I got doubts. Though the fly looked really bluish (and Liekele said this is a good character in the field), the arista is not bare but hairy. So not Wohlfartiini, but Sarcophagini, I am afraid. Do the representatives of this subfamily also have similar hairy palps?

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I would not call this fly "bluish" but I understand your confusion.

Lets put it in another way: I think if you start collecting Sarcophagidae and checking the genitalia, you will be able to recognise most Brachicoma in the field within a few months by the color. Brachicoma is - in the Netherlands - rather common.

This fly is Sarcophaga spec (male).

Liekele

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Thanks for the correction! Checking my Sarcophaga collection, this (very big) fly had an outstanding colour, and I do not think it was a matter of bad light only (see pic below: the right one has the "typical" Sarcophaga colouration). However, the photos are two years old, so I do not remember the circumstances.
So if I find a strange Sarcophaga in the future, I shall try first to get a good shot of the arista. Only a bare arista is interesting, and then the colour of the palps is the next character to check. Hairy dark palps seem to be frequent in Sarcophagidae. So much to learn, if one does not want to prepare genitalia...

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I really like Sarcophagidae but even after a few years they are very hard to ID in the field. My problem is that I collect them in summer and identify them in winter so by then I have forgotten how they looked in the field! :D

Getting to genus from good photos shouldn't be a problem but going to species usually needs male genitalia ... but they are fairly clear when you look at them :)

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No Brachycoma

Difficult to explain, but this is greyish, not .

More objective argument: arista is plumose


Theo