Oriental Horse Fly

Description:

Originally ID'd as Tabanus sp. but now Tabanus partitus. I have left all the Description and Notes as before to illustrate how things can sometimes be problematic. The Comment from arne.roysland helped a lot....Tabanidae; Tabaninae; Tabanini; Tabanus Linnaeus, 1758. This fly has been difficult to identify because there are many pictures, on various websites, which look so similar that I could not identify the species with sufficient confidence. The two "front runners" (amongst the images I have seen) are Tabanus striatus Fabricius, 1787 and Tabanus partitus Walker, 1856. If I had to make a choice between these two, I would favour the latter. That decision would be based on a paper which can be read (and also downloaded) at https://biostor.org/reference/75638... When I came across this document, I thought I was getting into deeper water, because it introduced another possible identification, Tabanus triceps Thunberg, 1827. However, the immediate clarification, early in the document, ruled out T. triceps as it was documented in India and I was back to the two aforementioned "front runners", both of which were documented in Southeast Asia. The document explains that all three of these species (the two in Southeast Asia and the one in India) had, at various times been named T. striatus. So, there have been many erroneous and misleading publications. The paper made enjoyable reading and the illustrations (anatomical drawings) were informative enough to tip me in favour of my Tabanus being T. partitus. The reason that I am still sticking with Tabanus sp. is explained in notes below.

Habitat:

This Horse Fly flew into our terrace from the backyard in the evening. It may have been attracted to the light and/or may have been seeking shelter from probably the heaviest rains we have experienced in the last 20 years (caused by a passing tropical depression - local name "Dodong")

Notes:

The scientific paper I downloaded was called "The Tabanus striatus Complex (Diptera, Tabanidae) - A Revision Of Some Oriental Horse Fly Vectors Of Surra" and was written by J. F. Burger & F. C. Thompson. The drawings would have left me with no doubts about my fly being T. partitus, but for two problems (of my own making). First, as you can see, my pictures do not show a front view of the head. Second, my photos are not sharp enough to zoom in to the legs and feet to give an accurate comparison with the anatomical drawings. With a little bit of guess work I felt that, in my own estimation my photos show T. partitus, but that would be completely unacceptable for the purposes of Project Noah. Therefore I have to stick with Tabanus sp. Better to look slightly inadequate than to mislead a whole bunch of people.