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In Andersen’s 1996 book “The Siphonini (Diptera: Tachinidae) or Europe” he made several changes to the names of Siphona spp., which have proved a bit confusing. The changes (and subsequent reversions) illustrate a few nice aspects of modern taxonomy and so I thought I would write a little piece on what happened. Every species is […] Tachinid Times #26 has some very interesting articles on a few projects around the world to compile DNA phylogenies of tachinids. One such is by my good friend Jaakko Pohjoismäki, who is looking at European tachinids. He has a few genera and species that he is having trouble locating so I am listing them here […] Today Matt & I attended “Big Nature Day” at the Natural History Museum, in London – a day for wildlife organisations to show what they do. The weather was hot & sunny and the event was very colourful and well-attended, with lots of events for children. #gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: […] Had a very good record recently, sent in by Phil Porter, of Phytomyptera nigrina. Richard Davidson took the specimen at Whisby Nature Park on 22nd April. Here is a photo of the specimen – note the “disappearing” median vein and the complete lack of m-cu vein – very rare features: […] It has taken a while to get the camera hooked up to the microscope because it is quite a complicated process, involving lots of adapters and converters – not to mention getting the optics and the extension tubes correctly arranged. The first shots really weren’t worth looking at but today I started to capture images […] Had a nice record from Tristan Bantock on the 17th – a Tachina lurida, seen on Parkland Walk near Crouch Hill tube station. They look superficially like the slightly earlier Tachina ursina but they are slightly less hairy and they lack a white band on the front of tergite 5. Tachina lurida, © Tristan […] It has been a hectic and exciting start to 2012 for the recording scheme, with the recent good news that we had won funding from Natural England!! For a while the government has been concerned to improve biological recording capacity in the UK and, with the support of Defra, the Department for Environment, Food and […] The warm, sunny Spring weather has brought out the early tachinids and we have already received records for Tachina ursina, Gonia picea, Lypha dubia, Campylocheta praecox, Macquartia tenebricosa & grisea, Brachicheta strigosa & Cyzenis albicans! It was a sunny day so I took a short walk across Hartslock Nature Reserve this lunchtime, with a vague idea that I might see some tachinids, like Tachina ursina. But to my great surprise (because they had never been recorded there before) I saw lots of Gonia picea all zigzagging low over the grass. […] Linnaemya picta was added to the British list fairly recently but has been found in a few localities this year – namely Kent, Suffolk & Cambridgeshire. There was also a suspected record from the Reading University grounds but this wasn’t confirmed beyond doubt. So it is worth noting that the male genitalia are particularly distinctive, […] |
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