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Photo#1092267
Bee Fly - Tmemophlebia

Bee Fly - Tmemophlebia
North Palm Beach (Munyon Island), Palm Beach County, Florida, USA
May 13, 2015
Size: 10mm
Members of this species frequent blossoms of beach morning glory (Ipomoea pes-caprae) along the west shoreline of Munyon Island in the Lake Worth Lagoon estuary.

Images of this individual: tag all
Bee Fly - Tmemophlebia Bee Fly - Tmemophlebia - Tmemophlebia

Range Extension or Undescribed Species?
I just scanned the Tmemophlebia entry in the bombyliid catalog of Evenhuis & Greathead(1). They list 3 U.S. species, and the closest their given distributions get to Florida is Texas (to the west) and Maryland (to the north). There is a species, T. fasciventris, listed from Cuba and Puerto Rico...but Curran's original description of the male doesn't seem to fit the male in this post, or those in the thumbnail below:

 

In fact, going through the catalog(1) listings for all the genera in subfamily Phthiriinae, only two species appear there with records from Florida: Poecilognathus punctipennis and P. sulphureus...neither of which fit here.

I presume the fine whitish pollinosity of the notum and abdomen are what suggest Tmemophlebia here. If so, then it seems this is either a significant range extension of one of the 3 described U.S. species, or an undescribed species. (At least in terms of info available before publication of the 2003 catalog(1)...but that was 13 years ago! Maybe subsequent records have extended known ranges, and/or new species and been described?).

The above also applies to other Tmemophlebia posts from Florida...except, for females, Curran's description of the male T. fasciventris can't be used to rule it out.

 
Tmemophlebia
This genus was revised in 2004 by Hall and Evenhuis in Flies of the nearctic region, vol V, pt 13 no 7. It isn't available online and I don't have a copy handy, but I believe there are now several species known from Florida. There is little chance of identifying them to species without a specimen in hand, as most of the characters are in the genitalia.

 
Thanks, Joel, for that heads up!
I should have known that...or better, remembered...since I added a citation for that grand reference by Hall & Evenhuis to BugGuide back in 2013.

But I erroneously had it in my head that the 2003 catalog of Evenhuis & Greathead(1) was more up-to-date than Hall & Evenhuis(2)...probably because most (i.e "Numbers 1-6") of Hall & Evenhuis(2) was written between 1980-1987, with a large time gap before the 2004 publication of "Number 7" (which treated only Tmemophlebia and a portion of Relictophthiria). And I hadn't realized that the catalog entries for Tmemophlebia in Evenhuis & Greathead(2003) didn't include a number of new taxa appearing in the 2004 "Part 7" of Hall & Evenhuis(2).

I actually laboriously copied a good chunk of Hall & Evenhuis(2) to PDF at the UC Berkeley library...but not most of 317 pages on Mythicomyia, nor some of the pages on Phthiriinae. I think I'll try to copy all the of Phthirinae treatment in "Part 7" soon. (Sure wish they had been able to complete their fabulous treatments to include Acreophthiria, Neacreotrichus and Poecilognathus!)

 
Just one species recorded from Florida in Hall & Evenhuis!
Got to the UCB Library and copied the rest of Hall & Evenhuis(1)...in particular, the entire treatment of Tmemophlebia.

Turns out there is only one species recorded from Florida among the 13 Tmemophlebia species treated therein (4 of which are recorded only from Mexico). That species is T. melanofemur, newly described on pg. 681 of Hall & Evenhuis(1).

Just thought I'd pass that info along, for what it's worth. Of course there's still a possibility this could be a yet undescribed species or a range extension for another species. But based on range, it's a natural candidate for the male here, and the other current Florida posts of males and females in the thumbs below:

       

At this point, I don't feel I have the expertise to clearly confirm or reject agreement here between the photos and the (substantial non-genitalic portion of the) description of T. melanofemur given in Hall & Evenhuis(1).

 
Tmemophlebia
I just noticed that Neal Evenhuis posted an updated version of his catalogue online - see http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/bombcat/ for the September 2015 files which include the updated Tmemophlebia ranges.

I wouldn't put much stock in the known ranges however. These flies are not collected very thoroughly (not surprising considering how small and cryptic they are) and there are a lot of gaps in our knowledge. As an example, John Klymko has found a population in New Brunswick; although we're still trying to nail down which species they are, they are definitely not T. coquilletti which is the most expected species based on range.

 
Caution in giving too much stock to (incomplete?) range info
As always, thanks for your informative response, Joel.

Good to know there's a new revision of the catalog.

And your example from New Brunswick illustrates one of the problems with trying to use recorded ranges alone to come up with a name for something.

I *did* try to read the description of T. melanofemur in Hall & Evenhuis(1) and see if I could reconcile it with what could be gleaned from the photos. It actually did not seem to match well as far as I could tell...but I figured I don't have enough familiarity with this genus in terms of the subtleties of interpreting character states (and their acceptable limits of variation)...so I punted. Another problem is that these guys are so small it's hard to clearly discern characters in most field photos.

Moved
Moved from Bee Flies.

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Please click on "edit"...
...and fill in the sighting date.

Thanks.

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