Mark McCaughrean

If you think telling Muscoid fly species apart can be difficult, let me introduce you to Syrphids.

This is a globetail, genus Sphaerophoria, but the devil's in the details, or partly the markings.

It's probably a female S. scripta, the common globetail, Gewöhnliche Langbauchschwebfliege in 🇩🇪

But there will be others & I will confuse them.

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12:21pmWeb
Show threadMark McCaughrean14h ago

And as for this lovely little bug-eyed fly, I'm not even going to try to go beyond the genus, which is likely Bicellaria, dance flies.

Oh, ok, if I must – as the fly is black all over apart from its huge eyes, it might be B. nigra complex of species, which are found in Baden-Wurttemberg, so it's plausible.

But by no means certain.

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Show threadMark McCaughrean14h ago

And by the way, the flower which tha globetail was feeding from is one of the few plants in full bloom in the garden.

As a result, it is attracting many flies & beetles.

I’m told that it’s an evergreen candytuft (Iberis sempervirens) & is said to smell sweet.

I must be missing something then, because it stinks, & the closest analogy I can make is to cheesy feet.

The arthropods seem to like it though.

Show threadRinaldo13h ago

Sauvegardons notre grandiose faune et flore sauvage !

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Show threadMark McCaughrean13h ago

Addendum: it's a good job I said that that globetail is *probably* S. scripta, because the lovely folks at iNaturalist have said that you can't be completely certain without getting a picture of the hairs on a female's hind femur, & measuring the width of the glabrous strip between them.

Not that they suggest an alternative species, mind you, but apparently there are a number of rare ones with which it can be confused.