Snipe Fly Rhagionidae Rhagio tringarius male - Rhagio tringarius

Moved

Moved from Rhagio.

… v belov, 22 November, 2010 - 11:02pm

Moved

… John R. Maxwell, 21 July, 2010 - 5:01pm

gender

I'm catching what I think is the same species in Nova Scotia, but this is a male, not a female. Look at the holoptic eyes (= they abut in the middle, whereas in the female there is a continuous gap separating them). The continuously tapered shape of the abdomen also indicates a male - the female's has a more stretched out onion bulb-like shape.
There seems to be some doubt elsewhere on BG with other similar specimens (Tom Murray's) as to whether they are really R. tringarius or R. vertebrata. Is it reasonably certain that this is tringarius? Has an experienced taxonomist confirmed the identification, or else is there some easy method to distinguish the two species?

… Steve Shaw, 20 July, 2010 - 6:02pm

Rhagio species & sex

Hi Steve,

Thanks for correcting the sex of this species. No, no expert has identified this to species so I'll take your word for it that it could be either R. tringarius or R. vertebrata.

Lloyd

… Lloyd Davidson, 21 July, 2010 - 2:46pm

Rhagio tringarius

Hi Lloyd,

This appears to be the European introducted R. tringarius.

The couplet from Chillcott's 1965 key seperates R. tringarius off early on using the absence of hair on the notopleural shelf in R. tringarius vs. R. vertebratus and everything after; however that is a hard character to examine by eye and on photos. Here are some of the characters I found so far to differentiate between them:

Rhagio tringarius:
Proboscis yellow
fore coxa usually yellow
as well all femurs relatively yellow uniformally

Rhagio vertebratus:
Proboscis dark
fore coxa usually infuscated
Distal third of hind femur brown (rest being yellow)
refer to http://bugguide.net/node/view/419510 (hind leg)

As well R. vertebratus usually has a stronger stigma spot than R. tringarius.

I hope this helps!

… Christmas C.Y. Ho, 16 August, 2010 - 1:49pm

IDs

Can you ID any of the other species of Rhagio? There are many images at genus level to be sorted out and we only have 2 of the 25 species so far.

… John R. Maxwell, 18 June, 2010 - 6:57pm

Speciating Rhagio

I wish. I only knew this one because I spotted it in Stephen Marshall's Insects book. Unfortunately, I'm not even a beginning entomologist. You have a lot of great photos in your collection. I'll look at some of the other sites over the next few days. You seem to be a good resource.

Lloyd

… Lloyd Davidson, 18 June, 2010 - 8:53pm

Moved

Moved from Rhagio tringarius.

… Lloyd Davidson, 18 June, 2010 - 6:51pm

Moved

Moved from ID Request.

… Lloyd Davidson, 18 June, 2010 - 6:51pm