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Photo#1362854
Phyllomydas? - Opomydas limbatus - male

Phyllomydas? - Opomydas limbatus - Male
Fish Slough ACEC, Mono County, California, USA
July 19, 2015
Size: approx. 1 inch

Images of this individual: tag all
Phyllomydas? - Opomydas limbatus - male Phyllomydas? - Opomydas limbatus - male Phyllomydas? - Opomydas limbatus - male

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Moved from Mydas Flies.

A true beauty :-)   And a new species for BugGuide!
The antennal clubs here: yellow-orange, very long, conspicuously "outwardly-angled", and uniformly-inflated (balloon-like!)...are quite distinctive for Opomydas. In most mydid genera the clubs are variously tapered at base and/or tip and not so symmetrically cylindrical throughout their length as here.

Other characters reinforce the (subfamily Ectyphinae and thence) genus Opomydas ID, i.e. the hind basitarsus is 5 times as long as wide (although, in the 3rd image, he appears to be missing his right hind leg beyond the coxae?).

I'm thinking it's a "he" from what I can see of the terminalia, and cross-referencing with the figures thereof in Kondratieff & Fitzgerald(1)(1996). Also, if it were a "she", in the 2nd image I think we'd be able to see the distinctive "circlet of spines" present in Opomydas (and many other genera of Mydidae...though not all, e.g. not in Mydas sensu stricto).

The antennal club here is longer than the 1st flagellomere, so this keys to species O. limbatus in Kondratieff & Fitzgerald(1)(1996). Also, K & F state:

"There are 2 color morphs of O. limbatus, an orange and a dark brown or black morph. The orange morph comprises =53% and the darker morph 47% of specimens examined. The 2 morphs seem to be equally common in frequency and distribution."
I guess your post is the slightly more common "orange morph".

I'd also guess that the single female specimen on which Williston based his original 1886 description was also the "orange morph". The agreement between that description and your post isn't perfect, but I think the discrepancies are likely due to either sexual dimorphism or significant variability in the species (apparently a third species, O. athamas, was synonymized under O. limbatus by Kondratieff & Fitzgerald(1)(1996), whose description of O. limbatus seems to suggest it's a fairly variable taxon).

Another great find, Ceal!

[PS: It's seems genus Phyllomydas doesn't make it to California from this collection records map, and from the range map on pg. 71 of Papavero & Wilcox(2)(1971).]

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