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Aida Maria Gomez saw the thread about this species a while ago and asked me for more information on the old British records of C. furcata, but her e-mail address isn't working, so I'll put it here and hope she sees it.

KGV Smith (1989, An introduction to the immature stages of British flies, Handbooks for the Identification of British Insects 10 (14)) says: "C. furcata has not been recorded in Britain since 1910 when Yerbury found adults at Porthcawl, Glamorgan. Previously he had found adults on a dead donkey, Mount Edgcumbe Park, Cornwall, in April 1889." He speculates that this and other Thyreophoridae may be missed by European entomologists because the flies are usually out at cold times of year.

However, in 1974 (Changes in the British dipterous fauna, pp 371-391 in The changing flora and fauna of Britain, ed. by D.L. Hawksworth) KGV Smith wrote that 12 specimens were taken from Porthcawl between 1903 and 1906.

I don't know why there is the discrepancy in dates. KGV Smith worked in the London Natural History Museum so it is possible he discovered more of Yerbury's old specimens between 1974 and 1989.

The 1974 paper also says the Mount Edgcumbe Park record was of two adults.

Stubbs, AE, & Chandler, PJ (2001, A provisional key to British Piophilidae (Diptera), Dipterists Digest, 8: 71-78) say C. furcata was last seen in Britain in 1906, and that it recently occurred in a donkey graveyard in Cyprus, citing Roger Key pers. comm. Roger works for the government conservation organisation Natural England at their Peterborough headquarters so you might be able to get more details from him.

I guess you have the reference Friedberg 1981 Ent. Scand. 12: 320-326.

That is as much as I know about C. furcata, but you could try Tony Irwin, who said on Diptera.info that it was his favourite fly. If you find out more about the British records I would be inetrested to hear.

Best wishes

John Bratton

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The problem with this genus seems to be that it relies on large carcasses (donkeys, horses, camels) which we just don't leave about like we used to. Thyreophora anthropophaga (related) was so common around human cadavers in the Paris medical school that Robineau-Desvoidy described it without keeping any specimens...none are known to exist now. And Tony is right...it is a stunning fly.

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The Thyreophorinae are known as bone-skippers. The larvae of other Piophilidae that live on cheese can jump by hanging onto their rear ends with their mouthparts, tensing the body, then letting go - this earned them the name of cheese-skippers. As Thyreophoridae larvae apparently feed on bone marrow, they get the name of bone-skippers, but I don't know if they can jump. They do seem to be more often found in cooler seasons (when most dipterists are busy trying to identify the previous year's captures ).
So next winter and spring we must all get out early in the year and find a dead donkey, cow, deer or dog that has been lying around for the winter. As Phil says, though, that's not easy in many countries - public health regulations get in the way!
I can't add anything to the details that John has listed.

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just seen this (title):

Michelsen, V. 1983. Thyreophora anthropophaga Robineau-Desvoidy, an 'extinct' bone-skipper rediscovered in Kashmir (Diptera: Piophilidae, Thyreophorina). Ent. scand. 14: 411-414

cosmln

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Thank you very much for all the information.

I am doing my Ph-D on forensic entomology in the centre of Spain. Sampling dead pigs is how i collected a single male of C. furcata among more than 42.000 specimens of many other arthropod families.

It is curious how it became identified: i send it by chance or "mistake" to Verner Michelsen together with some Anthomyiids thinking that it belonged to this family. He knew the species very well so finding this Piophilid among the Anthomyiids was a curious coincidence. Don?t you think?

We are now preparing a report about this new record of the species.

Thank everyone again. John i am specially grateful to you for bothering with my questions and doubts
Aida

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I was collecting some piophilids in animals (sheep and mouses... ). Maybe I will do the same thing as Nikita do: catching all dead animals around.

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I recently found this paper:

Martin-Vega, D., & Baz, A. 2011. Could the 'vulture restaurants' be a lifeboat for the recently rediscovered bone-skippers (Diptera: Piophilidae)? Journal of Insect Conservation, 15: 747-753.

It reports that feeding stations for vultures in central Spain have proved to be supporting Centrophlebomyia furcata (two sites) and Thyreophora cynophila (five sites). There are photos of the latter species. You certainly wouldn't ignore it if you saw one.

The author's e-mail is daniel.martinve@uah.es


John Bratton