Is it Musca domestica? - Palpada undescribed-species-near-furcata

Moved

… Martin Hauser, 19 December, 2013 - 6:19pm

Musca domestica probably Lejops

Thanks on the cropping comment. I'll do it in the future.
And I do have more pictures of this guy. I'll put'em up.

And it is not clear to me what I do when I see "moved from ID Request". Or moved whereever. Will new comments appear on this thread I'm on now or do I need to go find my original w/new comments somewhere else in the guide?

… Travis MacClendon, 9 December, 2013 - 8:57pm

Comments will appear here - e

Comments will appear here - essentially, your picture is now a node that is just filed in a different place, but keeps the same name and comment thread. You can always look at your pictures by going to the upper right of the page under the search bar and clicking on "Your Images," and you can click "Subscribe" to get email updates when someone comments on your image or moves it.

Moving the image from ID Request is just a way to bring the image to the attention of experts who mostly just check up on the pages they're interested in (e.g. syrphid flies) rather than looking at the main ID Request page, since there are so many bugs there!

… Kelsey J.R.P. Byers, 9 December, 2013 - 8:59pm

Cropping

One reason we suggest cropping to "just the bug" is so the fly's legs are large enough for Kelsey to see. I've been guilty a few times of posting an "artistic" shot with a full flower, but doing that can hinder identification.

… John F. Carr, 9 December, 2013 - 8:31pm

Hmmm... Lejops subgenus Anasi

Hmmm... Lejops subgenus Anasimyia (yellow face), or Parhelophilus? I can't see the hind legs enough to tell the difference between the two.

(I could also be completely wrong!)

To clarify further, I'm looking at the following couplet:

http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/bsc/ejournal/mylmst_23/mylmst_23_26.HTM

What I specifically need to see is whether the hind tibiae have a spur; it's a difficult angle. Do you have any other pictures of the fly?

Alternately, someone who knows these two genera better than me (i.e. most anyone who likes syrphids!) can probably tell without it.

… Kelsey J.R.P. Byers, 9 December, 2013 - 8:24pm

Palpada?

Compare Palpada furcata.

… John F. Carr, 9 December, 2013 - 9:03pm

John's nailed it to species.

Note distinctive thorax pattern, second most common of three for this genus.

… Ron Hemberger, 9 December, 2013 - 11:45pm

Hmm - good point; failures of

Hmm - good point; failures of working through a key, as it happens, and a good warning for me when looking at syrphids!

The very deep bend in R4+5 does seem more consistent with Palpada, and the range map fits better.

(Travis, I'd probably wait for another opinion before declaring one way or the other, since we have several options)

… Kelsey J.R.P. Byers, 9 December, 2013 - 9:09pm

Starting points

I found this crane fly larva in a rotting log, went straight to the key to larval Tipulidae, and identified it as Epiphragma, which I had seen adults of nearby.

The problem was, it didn't match the description of the larva.

It turned out to be a Rhagio, not Nematocera at all, and the similarities like creeping welts and lobes around spiracles were convergent rather than homologous.

… John F. Carr, 10 December, 2013 - 10:40am

Aaaagh convergence... gets yo

Aaaagh convergence... gets you every time. Sometimes I think things look like very weird Mimulus, and then they end up being something with similar features that is in a completely different family.

That's a tricky one!

… Kelsey J.R.P. Byers, 10 December, 2013 - 11:01am

Trees

Trees are my favorite example in the plant world. A genus may include trees, shrubs, and herbs, while two superficially similar trees may be only distantly related. If I were designing plants I would make the major division between big, woody plants, and small, feeble plants. But treeness has evolved independently many times.

One of the most common flowers in the White Mountains is a miniature dogwood, Cornus canadensis. There is also a small relative of Mountain Laurel, Kalmia polifolia, which I only recognized because it was blooming.

… John F. Carr, 10 December, 2013 - 11:09am

Moved

Moved from ID Request.

… John F. Carr, 9 December, 2013 - 8:10pm

Syrphidae

Family Syrphidae, a very distant relative of the House Fly in the order Diptera. One way to distinguish the families is the more complicated wings of Syrphidae.

… John F. Carr, 9 December, 2013 - 8:09pm