| Tachina magnicornis (Zetterstedt, 1844) |
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Scientific name: Tachina magnicornis (Zetterstedt, 1844) Common name: French name: Tachinaire à grande corne Order: Diptera Family: Tachinidae Wingspan : 12-15 mm. Biotope: Woodland areas, damp places. Waste lands, flower meadows. Geographic area: Europe. Observation period : April to October. |
Tachina magnicornis is a large fly with a hairy body, especially near the abdomen tip. The head is yellowish, the frons is wide and grey. The thorax is black. The scutellum is yellowish brown. The abdomen is yellowish and shows a wide continuous stripe, drawing lozenge shapes and being enlarged on segment 5, that's to say on the abdomen tip. The femora are black, the legs are yellowish, the fore leg 1 tarsi are darkened, dark brown or even black. There is a possible confusion with Tachina fera. This last one has pale tarsi and the black dorsal stripe ends with a pointed shape on the abdomen tip. Nowickia ferox has totally black legs. |
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It is rather difficult to photograph tachinid flies in the field in order to tell species apart. You need one picture of the fore leg tarsi, that's to say a front view, and one picture of the abdomen tip, that's to say a rear view. These flies often fly away since the first picture and you are never sure that the one which is coming back is the same fly. It seems to me that this one shows darkened tarsi 1 and that the dark stripe is enlarged on the abdomen tip. However there is still a small chance of confusion with Tachina fera. I have read that the main criteria to consider on a picture is the shape of the dark stripe on tergite 5 (I will only shoot rear views of tachinid flies now …) |
André Bon July 2013