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Genus Hemipenthes

Classification

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)

Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)

Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)

Class Insecta (Insects)

Order Diptera (Flies)

No Taxon (Orthorrhapha)

Superfamily Asiloidea

Family Bombyliidae (Bee Flies)

Subfamily Anthracinae

Tribe Villini

Genus Hemipenthes

Synonyms and other taxonomic changes

revised in(1)

Explanation of Names

Hemipenthes Loew 1869

'half-veiled in black' (refers to the wing pattern)

Numbers

23 spp. in our area, 80 total(2)

Size

6-12 mm, wingspan up to 22 mm

Identification

Body dark, often with scattered pale metalic-colored hairs on abdomen and/or thorax; wings with dark leading edge; dark area of wing has irregular rear border; trailing edge of wing clear. Proboscis fairly short, does not project beyond face. Face bluntly rounded. Rear margin of eye indented. Front tibia has dark bristles.

Range

New World (almost 2/3 of spp.) and Eurasia; in our area, all but 5 spp. are western (more diverse in sw. US), H. sinuosa e. US + AZ, H. catulina and the holarctic H. morio transcontinental in the US, H. celeris & H. floridana restricted to se. US(2)

Season

H. celeris: Jul-Sep in NC, H. sinuosa May-Sep in NC, Jun-Aug in MN(3)

Food

hosts: Diptera, cocoons of Ichneumonoidea & their Lepidoptera and Diprionidae hosts; records from Bombyliidae pupae, Andrenidae and Acrididae unreliable(4)

See Also

Chrysanthrax has similar wing pattern, but boundary is more linear (not so sinuate), plus golden hair on body

Anthrax georgicus --see comments

Works Cited

1.	A review of the North American species of Hemipenthes Loew, 1869 (Diptera: Bombyliidae) Ávalos-Hernández O. 2009. Zootaxa 2074: 1-49.

2.	Evenhuis N.L., Greathead D.J. (2015) World catalog of bee flies (Diptera: Bombyliidae) web site

3.	Insects of North Carolina C.S. Brimley. 1938. North Carolina Department of Agriculture.

4.	The evolutionary pattern of host use in the Bombyliidae (Diptera), a diverse family of parasitoid flies Yeates D.K., Greathead D. 1997. Biol. J. Linn. Soc. 60: 149-185.

Contributed by Cotinis on 23 June, 2004 - 3:29pm
Additional contributions by Beatriz Moisset, Robin McLeod, Aaron Schusteff, Ron M., v belov
Last updated 28 August, 2021 - 3:10pm

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