Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Leucophenga maculata - the monster fruit fly

I've had this on a pin from Dalgety Bay for going on two years. When I came across it while scouring boxes of "the unexamined" I couldn't remember catching it and can't believe I didn't give it more time since it's a bit "fancy". Maybe something else interesting happened at that time and it got bypassed.

When I keyed it to Drosophilidae I was thinking, "Yeah, right". Its wing length is 4mm! Well, would you believe it - it is in fact the "monster" drosophilid Leucophenga maculata. There aren't many records on NBN and none in Scotland, though who can guess how much that means. Certainly wasn't on the Fife list (though it will be on the new one!)





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