Skip to main content
Close

Muscid Fly (Male)

Phaonia sp.

Published on Project Noah
Zoom
NominateNominate for Wildlife Photograph of the Month
reportFlag Spotting

14.33, 121.09

Field Notes

Description:

Coppery-brown-orange fly, about 10mm in length. It has clear wings, reddish eyes, grey thorax with black stripes.

It could be a Phaonia sp. It looks very close to Phaonia subventa, but P. subventa is distributed across parts of the Palaearctic, not in the Oriental region. Phaonia Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830, is a very large genus from the fly family Muscidae, of order Diptera.

The orange body, stripy thorax, which is grey above and orange below, and the bulge on the outer wing help to identify it. The female has varying amounts of black on the abdomen. The sexual dimorphism in the eyes is striking, holoptic (eyes meeting) male and dichoptic female.

Habitat:

Backyard, spotted on a Gabi (Taro) leaf.

Notes:

Similar spotting:
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/13824072

Reference:
http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/aocat/muscidae.html (According to this, Phaonia does not occur in the Philippines. A close genus, Phaonina, is the one occurring in the Oriental region. I could not find corroborating images though.)

Other Reference:
http://thetopshamnaturalist.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-fools-day-flies-…
http://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/phaonia-subventa
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phaonia.subventa.female.1.jpg

Species ID Suggestions

Comments (0)

Be the first to comment

Sign in to comment

Accelerate our Mission to Photograph 
Every Species in the World!

Image
Butterflies icon

Wildlife Community

Wildlife Community

Join a worldwide community passionate about wildlife and nature!

Join Project Noah

Nature School

Nature School

Transform your green space into a curiosity-creating nature classroom!

Visit Nature School

Wildlife Game

Wildlife Game

Defend wildlife throughout the jungle in thrilling nature game!

Play Baboon