Thread subject: Diptera.info :: cf. Eriopterodes (Limoniidae) from Suriname
Posted by
Auke on 12-06-2020 21:39
#1
Please help to ID this flag-legged mosquito.
Title edited.
Edited by
Auke on 13-06-2020 02:43
#2
Some kind of Limoniidae????
#3
Based on a quick check of
Manual of Central American Diptera, I suggest
Eriopterodes which has mid and hind legs well separated and legs with conspicuous ornamentation.
Posted by
Auke on 13-06-2020 02:42
#4
Thanks again! Now filed as cf.
Eriopterodes.
#5
It doesn't match the description of either species of
Eriopterodes so it is probably another genus in the same group. Alexander mentions two others that can have scales on the legs:
Empeda and
Gymnastes.
Posted by
Auke on 13-06-2020 18:47
#6
Searching for images of these three genera (with
Empeda as a subgenus of
Cheilotrichia) with Google turns up no species with anything close to the ornamentation my fly has on its legs (most specimens in BOLD have no legs at all).
BOLD places these genera in Chioneinae, while Bugguide skips the level of subfamily and places
Cheilotrichia directly in the tribe Eriopterini. What is the lowest taxonomic level you would still consider accurate?
#7
BugGuide is using the tribal names of Alexander, used in a large majority of literature on American crane flies. By the rules of nomenclature, a tribe or subfamily containing both
Chionea and
Erioptera should be called Chioneini or Chioneinae. That's because somebody thought
Chionea was so unusual it deserved its own family group name early on in the history of nomenclature. Later it was discovered to be a heavily modified member of another group. (Michener points out the same problem in bees:
Hemihalictus was so unusual it was named early, but it is just a member of a well known genus that happened to have lost a wing vein.)
I believe your fly is close to
Erioptera based on what I can see of the wing veins and the large gap between mid and hind legs. Alexander called this group the "pot-bellied Eriopterini".
#8
Molophilus (Eumolophilus), apparently mimics culicids of the genus
Sabethes
Posted by
Auke on 17-06-2020 23:36
#9
Thanks, file name changed to Molophilus (Eumolophilus).
What would be the advantage of mimicking a mosquito?