Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Dalgety Bay, Fife - Tach the high road - Winthemia quadripustulata

A decent day yesterday topped by re-keying and re-checking a nice tachinid fly which looks a likely candidate for a Scottish first (checking with NMS in case other records exist, as often turns out to be the case). It's the 6th tachinid I've added to the county's paltry list of 29 species (British list 267) and the third new county species from this 1km square since the 12th of April! There must be scope for a lot more. I feel a review coming on ...

Anyway W.quadripustulata is the most common of the British members of the genus, so would have to have been voted "most likely". NBN has no other Winthemiae north of Leeds.





With the other, almost inconsequential, additions ...
561 Adela reaumurella Green Long-horn
562 Winthemia quadripustulata A Tachinid fly
563 Clubiona lutescens A clubionid spider
564 Paranchus albipes A ground beetle
565 Dasysyrphus venustus A hoverfly

5 comments:

  1. Well done on the Winthemia, very nice and one I've yet to discover. Glad someone is still out there finding good stuff. Constant rain down here for last 3 days so I've been been working through my backlog in the freezer. It's starting to look quite empty now.

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    1. scary when the stocks get low - been sunny since April here unbelievably, besides one day. Feel like I can scoop 5 new inverts during a lunchtime stroll easily. Still have to find time to ID them though!

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  2. Good hit with that fly, have you waved the pics under Chris Raper's nose yet?

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    1. Oh yes. As always, poor guy! You aren't on dipterists forum fb page? (also don't you have a box of flies you could call in your local dipterist on? you've probably got a goldmine on pins there!)

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    2. I probably am on that FB Group, I seem to be in most of that ilk :) As it happens I am now in contact with Murdo MacDonald who's very happy to see my flies, so to speak.

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