Paradelia intersecta

Paradelia intersecta is a super-common anthomyiid (flower fly) in spring, which can be swept from tree branches where large numbers of males can gather. It can be spotted from a sample in the first instance by its short, slightly downcurved abdomen. Unlike some other anthomyiids, the male can be confirmed by the leaf-like structures on the fifth sternite, which are visible without extracting the genitalia (though those are pretty characteristic too).

The nature of sternite 5 in male Anthomyiidae is often a useful character in identification. It's essentially the last "plate" on the underside of the abdomen before the genitalia. Even in the habitus picture below the prominent "leaf" is visible. For an essentially greyish, non-descript fly, this is a real time saver when sorting samples!

Short abdomen, big eyes (small gena)

Prominent leaf-like sternite 5

When extracted, the genitalia look like the image below, where you can see how the leaf-like extensions of s5 are attached.

Strobilomyia infrequens new to Scotland from Cullaloe Hills, 1st April

The first of the genus in Scotland, this is a fly, and a family, which mines conifer cones. S.infrequens mines Larch in particular, but doesn't appear to be fussy about which Larch. In this case I think it was hybrid, though that needs to be checked. It is noted as a "late" Strobiloyia, in the sense that the female has a long ovipositor, with which she places eggs between cone scales. The "early" species place an egg at the base of a cone. It will be interesting to see if affected cones can be found shortly. Larches are pretty ubiquitous in the UK, so it'll also be interesting if other Larchy places have Strobilomyia species.