Picture-winged Fly in California (March) - Curranops

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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Insects (Insecta) » Flies (Diptera) » Acalyptratae » Tephritoidea » Picture-winged Flies (Ulidiidae) » Curranops

Photo#257575

Copyright © 2009 Harsi S. Parker

Picture-winged Fly in California (March) - Curranops

Webb Canyon, ~2000 ft. altitude, Los Angeles County, California, USA
March 3, 2009
Size: ~3 mm

I photographed this small fly on the leaf of a Wild Cucumber (Marah sp.). I observed it doing a seemingly ritualized pattern of movements around the leaf while moving its wings in an independent rowing fashion. My first thought was that this was Pogonortalis doclea (Boatman Fly), but after looking at all the images in the Guide, I cannot find any that match the wings on my specimen. They seem to be totally devoid of the black pattern that I see on all the others. Also, although I was unable to get a precise measurement, I would not say that my specimen was any bigger than 4mm and most of the other measurements listed are 6mm or 1/4 inch.

So, I went ahead and looked through all the rest of the Tephritoidea images and these were the only ones that were remotely close, but even these still had some marking on the wings:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/147199/bgimage
http://bugguide.net/node/view/20290/bgimage
http://bugguide.net/node/view/194643/bgimage

Looking forward to hearing whether this is simply a very lightly marked individual of a known species, or if it something new for BugGuide! Oh, the yellow bits stuck to its face are pollen -- it seemed very interested in the stuff...

Images of this individual: tag all

Picture-winged Fly in California (March) - Curranops

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Contributed by Harsi S. Parker on 9 March, 2009 - 4:23pm
Last updated 1 August, 2009 - 5:05pm

Moved

Moved from Tephritoidea.

… Martin Hauser, 13 March, 2009 - 7:30pm

So my guess is Curranops, but

So my guess is Curranops, but I am not completely sure...

… Martin Hauser, 13 March, 2009 - 7:28pm

Thanks, Martin -

I thought you'd stop by eventually. This is at least "ähnlich", & can be confirmed or updated, perhaps with a specimen.

… Hartmut Wisch, 13 March, 2009 - 8:41pm

My most sincere thanks Dr. Hauser...

...for attempting to assign an ID to this fly. I will do my best to try and get better photos of this species in the future and hopefully settle any remaining doubts. I presume that I should be focusing on attempting to get cleaner images of the wing pattern... anything else in specific?

… Harsi S. Parker, 13 March, 2009 - 8:15pm

There are some characters at

There are some characters at the base of the wing which are important and also the scutellum. The question is if this fly has 4 or 2 setae on the scutellum. and maybe a better frontal head pic would help. But it would also help if you just catch one and send it to me...
Thanks a lot
Martin

… Martin Hauser, 13 March, 2009 - 10:11pm

Interesting

I like how similar it is to Sepsidae (Black Scavenger Flies), pretty cool.

… John R. Maxwell, 13 March, 2009 - 1:12am

Great shots of this little fly, Harsi!

Not an ID, but I'd lean toward Myrmecothea or something closely related, because of the ant-like pedicel.
Martin Hauser might know.

… Hartmut Wisch, 9 March, 2009 - 5:51pm

Thanks Hartmut!

I appreciate the compliment and your experienced opinion. I spent the last several days trying to find more images and/or resources on California Myrmecothea species, but I'm afraid I came up pretty dry. I'm hopeful that if I give it a little bit of time, more eyes will see these images and more answers will surface.

… Harsi S. Parker, 11 March, 2009 - 4:20pm

Hello again, Harsi -

Your fly is not a Myrmecothea, a genus with only one sp. known only from the SE United States. I'm not sure what it is, though it appears to be in the same family. To get a proper ID I suggest to find a specimen; Jim Hogue (Cal State Northridge) tried to help, but some main characters in the key are not visible in the photos What was the approximate size of your fly?

… Hartmut Wisch, 12 March, 2009 - 5:12pm

Size...

Well, I entered ~3mm into the form field, but that was really just an estimate based on a blurry photo I took of it next to my pinky finger. I just uploaded that photo for you showing the length of my fingernail, but because the fly is not exactly on the same plane or orientation I did have to do some guessing. Not sure if that will be at helpful... I did take a lot of photos of this little fly and I think that I submitted the best of the bunch, but if you tell me more specifically which characteristics Dr. Hogue is looking for, I will look through them all again for better candidates.

Once again, many thanks for continuing to try and pursue an ID for this fly! I really am quite fascinated by the process itself, even if the answers are not always attainable.

… Harsi S. Parker, 12 March, 2009 - 6:47pm

Thanks for the extra photo -

Sorry, I must have overlooked your size estimate.
We got stuck when it came to evaluating the basal cell in the wing, which isn't clearly visible in the photos.

… Hartmut Wisch, 12 March, 2009 - 7:36pm

Out of luck...

I don't think I have anything else that shows that portion of the wing better. If I am understanding correctly where the basal cell should be located, I thought that you could maybe see it in the middle photo of the composite wing image that I posted. But, maybe not clear enough?

… Harsi S. Parker, 12 March, 2009 - 7:55pm

Sorry, no -

but there's always another time. I have things from years ago that suddenly become clear for one reason or other.

… Hartmut Wisch, 12 March, 2009 - 8:10pm

Should I move these...

...to the superfamily page for Tephritoidea or send to Frass?

… Harsi S. Parker, 12 March, 2009 - 8:16pm

Don't frass these!

They're a good addition to bugguide, & yes I'd say move to Tephritoidea. At some point we/ someone will identify this further.

… Hartmut Wisch, 12 March, 2009 - 9:36pm

These images are definitely keepers

Unique and detailed, they hold great promise for future ID.

… Ron Hemberger, 12 March, 2009 - 9:32pm

Thanks guys!

Your encouragement is most kind.

… Harsi S. Parker, 12 March, 2009 - 10:40pm

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