Wednesday 11 September 2013

Parc Slip

The security lights around the Visitor Centre are always worth checking as they tend to have a decent selection of insects around them in the mornings and today was no exception - a beautiful fresh red underwing, a brimstone and a plume (Platyptilia gonodactyla) plus a nice bibionid fly - Bibio pomonae. There doesn't appear to be many Glamorgan records for this species on NBN and it wasn't on our Parc Slip species list until now.

4 comments:

  1. Nice Red underwing record Vaughn.

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  2. There are not many Bibionid recorders in the county. As as result there are not many records - around 60 records for all Bibio species, and about 40 for the Dilophus species. So if you can identify them you've got a good chance of getting new species for squares, at least as far as the SEWBReC dataset is concerned (Dipterist's Forum may know better!)

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  3. I've found Bibio pomonae rather tricky to ID. We had 80+ in the garden here in Brechfa last June and I was so puzzled by them I bought the ID guide (you're welcome to borrow it, Vaughn). The leg colour and other features seemed surprisingly variable and there were more species of Bibio than I'd expected (16 in all). Having said that, the late summer/autumn favours B pomonae, with only that species, B clavipes and B lepidus reported from later than July.

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  4. Thanks Sam - what is the name of the id guide please? I was not aware of how much they vary but it keyed out in the key I found but a whole id guide would be useful!

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