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Photo#512252
fly - Physoconops excisus

fly - Physoconops excisus
Dunedin, Pinellas County, Florida, USA
April 12, 2011
Size: ~18mm+/-

Images of this individual: tag all
fly - Physoconops excisus fly - Physoconops excisus fly - Physoconops excisus

Moved to Physoconops excisus
Moved from Subgenus Pachyconops.

For a long time I'd been unclear on the confusing situation among the cluster of Florida Physoconops consisting of P. floridanus, P. weemsi, P. excisus, and what seemed to be possibly "disjunct" members of the supposedly southwest species P. townsendi (and apparently I'm not alone in the latter idea...see the last line of this University of Lund record).

But it's become clear to me that some of the posts I was hesitant about (like yours here) are indeed P. excisus. And at this point the "complete post-vertical pollinose stripe" and color pattern characters of the frons, face, thorax, and abdomen I can now confidently place this as P. excisus. (The ones that are still tricky for me are P. weemsi and P. floridanus...but I hope to sort them out too.)

Moved
Moved from Physoconops.

Two Distinguishing Characters Visible
Physoconops and Physocephala can be difficult to tell apart.

Your image here illustrates two distinguishing characters of Physoconops:
(1) Ocelli are present on a small but distinct hemispherical swelling at the vertex (cf. couplet 3 on pg 753 of the MND(1));
(2) The hind femora are more or less uniform in width.

In Physocephala there are no ocelli, and the hind femora are irregularly-thickened at base.

Moved
Moved from Conopinae.

Moved
Moved from Thick-headed Flies.

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