Southern Marsh Orchids

Southern Marsh Orchids

Sunday 19 July 2015

Creigiau - flies (& friends) in the sun

Amongst the usual suspects seen during a short stroll in Craig y Parc woods & meadows a couple of interesting looking flies turned up, both new to me.

Calocoris stysi

Rutpela maculata
This trend continued when I returned to the garden - lots of bees, hoverflies & other 'flies', but some that I didn't recognise at all and I still haven't managed a definite ID for two of them.

hoverfly - Syritta pipiens 

Chloropidae - grass fly on Shasta Daisy petal

hoverfly - Sphaerophoria sp


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4 comments:

  1. Mark Evans20 July 2015 at 20:46

    Great photos, Burt. I know the longhorn as Strangalia maculata. Is Rutpela its new name?

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  2. Howard Burt20 July 2015 at 22:54

    hi Mark

    It would appear so. I have found a number of references that say "Rutpela maculata formerly Stranglia maculata". Another of the images in this set, Calocoris stysi, I have also seen called Grypocoris stysi but am not sure which is the current name!

    Why do they change them?

    Howard

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  3. Mark Evans21 July 2015 at 07:41

    Don't get me started on the subject of taxonomists or we'll be here all day and I'll probably need to lie down in a darkened room afterwards!

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  4. VC41Moths21 July 2015 at 11:25

    To check for current names, go to the Natural History Museum's Species Dictionary pages (http://nbn.nhm.ac.uk/nhm/). They maintain the 'official' list of names. They change them when they realise that things are either more closely related than they thought, or less so. Taxonomists are likely to become extinct in the UK in our lifetime.

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