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Hello!

Last but not least some not so good photos of other flies I took yesterday here in Germany. I hope someone can nevertheless give a comment on one or the other. Thanks in advance!

The first one (~ 8 mm) sat on the wall of our house. I assume it is some kind of soldier fly, maybe an Oxycera species?




The next flies were very abundant in the leaves of trees at the wood's edge. Belonging to the Drosophilidae?




The next two look a little like Scatophagids, but no species I know:



The last unknown, but quite distinctively marked flies were only about 2-3 mm long (sorry, no better photo possible with such small objects) and running restlessly on the bark of Fagus, Fraxinus etc.



Here a pic of a syrphid fly that does not need to be identified, but I found it quite nice :-) (the first Volucella bombylans this year).

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Hello J?rgen,

I saw this "distinctively marked fly" last week, I first thought it was some sort of Hymenoptera sp.
Because you took it in here, I looked in "Sauers Fliegen und M?cken"
and found something very similar : Tachydromia elegans (Empididae).

Ben

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J?rgen,

About Tachydromia : In the "Checklist of the diptera of the Netherlands" (Paul L.Th. Beuk) there is among 12 Tachydromia sp. no T. elegans and Tachydromia ranges there under Hybotidae, so better wait for the expert himself to give his opinion.

Ben

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Hello, Ben!



Thanks for your help. I just posted a very small Empidae in another thread, but that was still quite large compared to these tiny flies. They don't resemble much the Empids, so I think they really belong to another family.

BTW: If I correctly translate 'Tachydromia' into 'fast runner', this would be a very appropriate name!

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Hi.

The first fly is a Stratiomyid of genus Odontomyia. Probably O. argentata, but perhaps there are other species with such a silvery abdomen in Central Europe (I am familiar only with the North Eur. fauna). In Finland this species was very rare up to 1960, but it has since been collected in some numbers on many sites. Today it is by far the most common Odontomyia in our country.

Family Lauxaniidae. Most species in this family are pale yellow (some with black dots on wingds or abdmen). These do probably belong to genus Meiosimyza (=Lyciella)

The two 'scatophaids': The first one is actually a hoverfly of genus Brachyopa! These flies are quite unlike other syrphids in body shape and behaviour, and they are easily taken as muscoid flies in the field. The grey-thoraxed one is a Heleomyzid.

Finally, the small fly with banded wings is (as many have said before me) a hybotid of genus Tachydromia. Hybotidae was previously seen as a part of Empididae, but since the seventies it is considered a full family.

Jere

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Hello!

Thank you very much for your detailed explanations!



Thanks. I did not think of Odontomyia, because in my (incomplete) literature there were only species with yellow markings.



I should have taken a look at my picture archive. I have some photos of Lauxaniidae quite similar to this - except for the black wing markings...



After the first postings I found some information that both families are now considered members of the Empidiodea.

BTW: A question: Which term is correct, 'Empidae' or 'Empididae'? I mostly read 'Empididae', but derived from the genus 'Empis' it should be grammaticaly correct (?) 'Empidae' - unnecessary to insert an additional 'di' into the family name.