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Observed recently near a river in east China (Zhejiang province). Body length around 4mm. Drosophilidae? Thanks in advance!

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Compare Homoneura (Homoneura) ornatifrons (Kertész, 1913).

Kertész, K. 1913. H. Sauter's Formosa Ausbeute. Lauxaniidae. (Dipt). Annales historico-naturales Musei nationalis hungarici 11:88

There must be a more modern review of Oriental Lauxaniidae, but that is the one I have handy. I was struck by the similarity of the head to Homoneura unguiculata described in the same paper.

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Thank you, John, for pointing to me to this direction! There seems to be an amazing similarity in details (e.g. leg coloration, scutellum etc.) between my fly and Homoneura ornatifrons pictures found at this link (https://zenodo.org/record/250669).

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This is definitely in the Homoneura ornatifrons-group, which also includes Homoneura repanda Sasakawa & Ikeuchi, 1982 and Homoneura trunciformis Shi & Yang, 2009. Of these, I have only seen the type for H. ornatifrons, which is held in Budapest, and this specimen matches very closely. That said, although certainly in this species group, can't be totally sure it is this species. Here are the known distributions of the species in this group:

Homoneura ornatifrons: Taiwan, Ryukyu Islands

Homoneura repanda: southern Japan including Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, Sulawesi, Java, Lombok, Krakatau, Solomon Islands (and probably much more widespread)

Homoneura trunciformis: China (Hainan).

Considering distributions, this species would be most likely H. ornatifrons or H. repanda. There are a number of papers dealing with these species, mostly from Sasakawa and from Li Shi.

Note, H. unguiculata is a yellow species, much different from this one.

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Thank you, Steve, for narrowing it down to group level. I did a quick check only to find that Homoneura trunciformis (Shi & Yang, 2009) has already been treated as a synonym of Homoneura ornatifrons (Kertész, 1913), according to Catlogue of Life China, the Chinese language version of Catlogue of Life (http://www.sp2000...3302b6eb1b). Homoneura ornatifrons is the most promising candidate as it has striking similarity in details and it has been recorded from Jiangxi, a neighboring province to Zhejiang, where my observation was made.