#1
Hi
On May 12. 2009 I swept this charming fly from tall dry grasses on the edge of a birch forest near Copenhagen.
Apart from the tip of the scutellum there are no setae on the body, but all of the fly including its eyes are covered with short golden hairs. Body length ~ 5 mm.
I suppose it is some kind of Chloropidae, but otherwise I am clueless.
Does anyone have a suggestion?
Cheers,
Walther
#5
Thanks to you both!
The Danish check list mentions only
Lipara lucens as reliably recorded and another three species likely to occur.
What is needed to take it a step further to species level?
Walther
#6
Lipara lucens Meigen, 1830 (Chloropidae, Oscinellinae). This phantastic images shows the neatly parted golden hairs on the thorax and a character of all Chloropidae, see below. The adjective lucens means "shining" and describes these hairs which densely cover the robust fly, different from two other blackish Lipara species, pullitarsis and rufitarsis. L. similis is smaller, less robust, with longer silvery hairs. The larvae of the valid 5 European Lipara spp. produce galls in reed (Phragmites australis). These cigar-like galls, heavily lignified only in L. lucens, are the focus of a great many of scientific publications and dissertations. The images optimally show the kink by which the most posterior longitudinal vein, the CuA1 (in earlier times called M3+4), is interrupted near the middle of the “discal medial cell” (dm). This character demonstates the very position where the lost terminal closing vein of the anal cell (the CuA2) had disappeared during the early evolution. All world Chloropidae (including the Tertiary amber species 45 million years ago) miss this cell and vein and, with few exceptions, possess this kink and interruption; compare Denisia 26 (2009): 171-212.