Brachypterous lesser dung fly

Found in leaf litter at Dalgety Bay this lovely brachypterous fly is allegedly a common species. Presumably I've just been overlooking it.

You can see the scutellum here with two pairs of marginal spines and no discals. You can see the middle tibia with two anterodorsals in the distal half. You can also see the costa "overshooting" R4+5 (is that the right designation? Sounds a bit off).

Anyway, glad to have it on my Sphaerocerid list. Should be easy enough to recognise in the future too

Calypterate Flies of Fife

A quickie look at the recording levels of calypterate flies from the 2006 Fife Nature list to today's list (not fully updated).

Some families are actually not too badly represented, while others are not so great. Still clearly a lot of flies to catch!

Leucophenga maculata, Dalgety Bay, 2018

I've had this on a pin from Dalgety Bay for going on two years. When I came across it while scouring boxes of "the unexamined" I couldn't remember catching it and can't believe I didn't give it more time since it's a bit "fancy". Maybe something else interesting happened at that time and it got bypassed.

When I keyed it to Drosophilidae I was thinking, "Yeah, right". Its wing length is 4mm! Well, would you believe it - it is in fact the "monster" drosophilid Leucophenga maculata. There aren't many records on NBN and none in Scotland, though who can guess how much that means. Certainly wasn't on the Fife list (though it will be on the new one!)