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This is a tough one! The female Rhaphium below is either appendiculatum or caliginosum. Fonseca's RES key to UK Dolichopodidae splits the two species on a very difficult wing vein character:

caliginosum: "cubital vein gently curving rearwards from about middle to near apex, where it becomes quite straight to wing margin"

appendiculatum: "Cubital vein, after curving rearwards to near apex, slightly curving forwards to wing margin"

I reckon it is appendiculatum, on the other hand it could be caliginosum, wait no, maybe it's appendiculatum, or could it be....

VERY DIFFICULT, so lets vote. What do others think?

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here is the whole fly

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I find this character worthless. Or at least I cannot see the difference in by material.

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Yes I had that suspicion. Are there any other characters to look for? Or do we just stick to males?

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I haven't found anything reliable. The setulae of fore tibia looked promising for a time, but I am not sure if they are any better than the wing character.

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Dear Nigel,
I never try to identify females of appendiculatum, caliginosum and allied species. Parent also used the vein curvation character in some genera. But have you ever seen absolutely flat wing in dry Dolichopodidae? I never. In addition, there is some extent of individual variability by that character.

As for me, I do not usually publish new records by females only (not associated with males), if they belong to Rhaphium (and Chrysotus, Teuchophorus, Medetera, Argyra, Hydrophorus, Sympycnus) [except for some remarkable species].
Igor.

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Dear Igor,
many thanks for the helpful commentary. I must say that my limited experience so far, leads me to agree with you, that records based on females of many genera are probably not reliable.

Nigel