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Spider parasite fly (♂)

Leucopsina odyneroides

Description:

Body length about 10mm. Small head with all-encompassing eyes. High domed thorax. Very large calypters.

Habitat:

On Leptospermum or Kunzea sp. flowers at the edge of a local national park.

Notes:

This fly is so similar to a 'potter wasp', which appears at the same time of year, that I think there must be some mimicry relationship. All suggestions welcome on that subject! See wasp here.... http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/163...
family :ACROCERIDAE
subfamily: Panopinae
http://bie.ala.org.au/species/Leucopsina...
To the owner of the Hymenopterans mission sorry but a bug is stopping me from removing this spotting. I'll keep trying.

1 Species ID Suggestions



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6 Comments

Mark Ridgway
Mark Ridgway 9 years ago

@federico2 No.

MartinL
MartinL 9 years ago

A very interesting observation.

bayucca
bayucca 9 years ago

:-))

Mark Ridgway
Mark Ridgway 9 years ago

I left this spotting blank to see how many people might think it was a wasp (or a bee) but there's no tricking you guys. :-)
Jolly you're right those calypters are a big giveaway.
Bayucca I think your ID is spot-on. Not much info around on them though.
I'll be wracking my brain for days now about why it looks so much like a little wasp that appears at exactly the same time.
Thanks for the comments and suggestion.

bayucca
bayucca 9 years ago

Acroceridae. Leucopsina odyneroides as closest and very cheeky suggestion! Please, verify!!
http://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?...
http://www.diptera.info/forum/viewthread...

Jolly Ibañez
Jolly Ibañez 9 years ago

Looks like from the order diptera (flies). I can see the halteres typical of that order

Mark Ridgway
Spotted by
Mark Ridgway

Victoria, Australia

Spotted on Nov 22, 2014
Submitted on Nov 22, 2014

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