Thread subject: Diptera.info :: Microsania pectipennis? August 02, 2007
#1
This morning I left to collect some food plants for caterpillars. It started to rain soon, and I was soaking wet, so I decided to kindle a bonfire to dry myself a bit and, hopefully, try to catch some
Microsania. It took an empty cigarette box and two 10-Ruble notes to start a fire, I'm definitely not a good scout. The fire burned for an hour or so,
Microsania came when it's almost extinguished and there was a lot of smoke. In 5 or 10 minutes I caught 2 males and 1 female (?), and then it was over. No swarming of course, just random sweeping near the fire. Size around 2 mm.
#3
And that's a female I believe.
#4
1. You stoled my idea
2. Genitalia of your males is similar to mine, so soon we'll get species level ID.
Nikita
#5
2 notes burned???
In fires (i'm not talking about bonfires... but fires on forests), is it usually to find Microsania in trunks of trees? Why they are connected with smoke? Perhaps they put their eggs in ashes???
"but Microsania swarms are usually observed in smoke and both sexes may be found around wood ash. Larvae of Microsania are unknown,"
Is it true about the last sentence??
#6
Damn - there was a burning car outside my office this afternoon and I never even thought to rush out with a net and camera! Mind you, since my office is in the City of London, and that sort of incident always causes considerable panic, I would certainly have been arrested as a suspicious character.
Jorge - I think the scouting demonstration cost Dima less than a euro. Isn't it illegal to destroy or deface currency though?
#7
Last Saturday I made two fires (this time I was more lucky with birch bark), one of them exactly in the same place where I caught those three but no
Microsania, so it's not so easy as it might seem. Maybe it was a bit late (6 to 7.30 p.m.)... As a consolation, I found a male and a female of
Colobaea bifasciella on my way back.
#8
August 07, another fire, this time in a pine forest, 1.30 to 3 p.m. Dozens of
Microsania, almost equal proportion of males and females. Some males were carrying loads of mites on ventral side of abdomen.
#9
Does anybody know what Chandler says about association of
Microsania with mites (
The Flat-Footed Flies: (Diptera: Opetiidae and Platypezidae) of Europe, p. 81)?