#4
Thank you John.
Is my Tephritidae key uncorrect? In it couplet dividing Orellia distans and Terellia tussilaginis is:
- an cell (=cup) with short tooth near A vein (not longer than bp cell (=bm)) - Orellia dicstans
- an cell (=cup) with long tooth near A vein (longer than bp cell (=bm)) - lead via Terellia tussilaginis.
I decided that tooth is short. Was I wrong?
Nikita
#5
Hi Nikita,
Nope your key is correct! But this is what I would call a long tooth on cell an. If you see the real
O. distans, or a real
Orellia, it is immidiately clear. There is however another difference between
Orellia and
Terellia, in
Orellia there are two black spots at the sutur on the thorax, on which no(!) setae are implanted, whereas in
Terellia there are no such spots at the suture.
A quick and dirty character in the field is that
T. tussilaginis is very light yellow in colour, whereas
O. distans is more dark, orange brown with even some grey (on abdomen or thorax, I 'm not entirely suren which).
Nevertheless it is very healthy and good to keep on being critical!
Best wishes,
John