I'm currently updating and making corrections to the Ephydridae key prepared for the @dipteristsforum.bsky.social workshop. Please let me know if you've noticed any errors or anything that might need updating. Comments, DM or email to sjthomasbotanyATgmail.com please. #Diptera #entomology

New #GBRedList for vascular plants is published today by a team led by @bsbibotany.bsky.social with partners @naturalengland.bsky.social @ukceh.bsky.social @naturescot.bsky.social @natreswales.bsky.social @nhm-london.bsky.social @plantlifeintl.bsky.social @rbgkew.bsky.social @thebotanics.bsky.social

Empis digramma female #Empididae. A distinctive pale yellow species with short bristles and two stripes on the scutum. Frequent in the north of the UK. #Diptera #Entomology #insectphotography #inverts #bugsky #macro

The very small #Chloropidae Pseudopachychaeta ruficeps swept this spring from alpine sedge flushes, Beinn Ghlas, Ben Lawers NNR. This species develops in the inflorescences of Eriophorum (Cottongrass) species. #Diptera #Entomology @dipteristsforum.bsky.social

Gonatherus planiceps female #Scathophagidae. A uncommonly collected, spring-flying, species of upland flushes and other wet habitats in the mountains. This one from Beinn Ghlas in the Ben Lawers NNR this May. #Diptera #Entomology @dipteristsforum.bsky.social

It's not asylum seekers who jack up rents, undermine the NHS, hold down wages and keep people insecure. It's capital. The role of the far right is to shift the blame for decades of economic attacks by the rich and powerful onto powerless people who have only just arrived here.

However you arrive in the UK you are welcome. People who are 'concerned about immigration' are racist. The government is at fault for poverty. Stop punching down.

Ranunculus x levenensis with parent spp R. reptans Creeping Spearwort & R. flammula Lesser Spearwort on a Cumbrian lake shore. The hybrid has larger flowers & broader lamina than reptans with linear leaves. R. reptans has few GB locations, often ephemeral being introduced from the arctic by birds

Rock sea-lavenders from the Afon Crigyll Estuary Ynys Môn: Limonium recurvum subsp. crigyllensis (with rough scape) described in 2022 by Ivor Rees and only know from this site where it grows with the more widespread L. procerum (smooth scape). @bsbibotany.bsky.social #wildflowerhour

Hypopitys monotropa (Yellow Bird’s-nest) from an evening woodland walk. This is subspecies hypophegea which is completely glabrous, often delicate, yellowish with fewer flowers. Now is the time to check the subsp. ID of your local populations with Fred Rumsey's @bsbibotany.bsky.social News key.

Scotland trip started on Skye: Koenigia islandica (Iceland-purslane) only just germinating and the weather too bad for Arabis alpina on the Cuillins. However, Ligusticum scoticum (Scots Lovage) was looking lovely at Armadale. 1/5 @bsbiscotland.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social #wildflowerhour

Just back from a mostly productive botany trip around western Scotland, still need to edit the plant photos so here's a delightful male Snow Bunting singing on the summit of Ben Nevis in the evening sunshine.

Received the pdf of my paper adding Philotelma parvum to the UK list in the upcoming issue of Dipterists Digest. A rather obscure little Ephydridae (shore fly) collected from the New Forest, emphasising again the importance of New Forest mires for rare Diptera drive.google.com/file/d/1FCwH...

Very unexpected & rare: Anticheta obliviosa female #Sciomyzidae from saltmarsh on Hayling Island, Hampshire. Previously known in the UK from fens around Huntingdon and singles from Cheshire and Yorkshire - all inland. Nice find for a quick evening sweep #ento #diptera @dipteristsforum.bsky.social

Glenanthe sp. female from Hayling Island the other day. A very small saltmarsh #Ephydridae with distinctively 'upside down pear' shaped eyes. Likely G. ripicola but can't rule out G. fuscinervis without a male. #Diptera #ento #macro @dipteristsforum.bsky.social

Almost forgot #WorldRobberFlyDay but luckily reminded by @flygirlnhm.bsky.social. Here's the puparium of Laphria flava (Bumblebee Robberfly) collected from a pine log in Abernethy Forest a few years back. @dipteristsforum.bsky.social #diptera #ento #macro

Chlorops varsoviensis a pNationally Scarce #Chloropidae of upland marshy areas. Now added to the (slowly) growing Chloropidae UK Flickr group. Please add any relevant identified photos or message me and I can help add them www.flickr.com/groups/14873... #diptera #ento @dipteristsforum.bsky.social

Rhamphomyia maculipennis, a costal #Empididae with two dark marks on the wing in females, from Hayling Island today. #diptera #ento @dipteristsforum.bsky.social

Swift moth caterpillar-eye view of a female Alomya debellator wasp - a specialist parasitoid of root-feeding Hepialidae which it hunts in the caterpillar's underground burrow.

Some exciting new ID webinars on tricky plant taxa I'm organising over the next few months

A few pics of cranefly male terminalia from Ben Lawers last summer. Part of an occasional effort to produce decent images for these as I often find the line drawings in the book difficult to interpret.

Scoliocentra flavotestacea female #Heleomyzidae from Creag an Lochain, Ben Lawers last summer. An uncommon species according to @suillia.bsky.social great ID resources available here: dipterists.org.uk/heleomyzid-s...

We're proud to be 1 of 10 UKTEPoP partners who today published a joint statement pledging our commitment to diversity, equity & inclusion in UK species monitoring schemes: jncc.gov.uk/our-work/ukt... We need to better understand how biodiversity loss is impacting under-recorded areas & communities.

Flip-Flop taking his #NewYearPlantHunt 2025 Support Team role very seriously this morning - at the ready to identify any tricky plant finds @bsbibotany.bsky.social

It seems like there are a few issues with Dryopteris names on PSL @panspecieslisting.bsky.social. Nothing is solid with this group but see attached from Fred the other month. Unless the current approach is based on expert input I think some need to be removed, see comments in alt text.

I wish this didn't keep coming up in my feed, getting more and more tempted. I don't have the other volumes but small staphs are almost honorary flies, they turn up a lot in my samples and I generally haven't been able to do anything with them up until now

'Refound' by Jac and I without realising that it hadn't been recorded for nine years, can't really take credit given someone had put protective sticks around it before we turned up.

Apparently #BlackFlyDay so here is one - Lonchaea fugax a common lance-fly from the other year #invertebrates #entomology #diptera

Steven Falk has just added six more British Muscidae genera to his Flickr site: Limnospila, Macrorchis, Orchisia, Pseudolimnophora, Schoenomyza and Spanochaeta flickr.com/photos/63075.... Images & detailed accounts for each species. Biodiversity! Look at that colourful Schoenomyza litorella head!

One from the back catalogue: Gonia picea an early spring #Tachinidae with a superbly bristly face

Nice to finally see Erigeron bonariensis in the UK and complete my Erigeron composite. Thanks to @trisnorton.bsky.social for showing me the plants

I've updated all of the #Hieracium on my website www.vascularplants.co.uk/asteraceae-d... there are 150 species photographed. Here are a few 2024 highlights from my first ever #hawkweed trip to Scotland Hieracium basicrinum, H cuspidens, H pseudoanglicum, H laetificum

Philygria picta, not its best aspect but still a pretty little #Ephydridae from the New Forest last weekend #flyfriday

Happy #flydayfriday from the shore fly Setacera aurata with its rather splendid white and hairy face. From the side of a canal lock gate this week in East Yorkshire. #ento #ephydridae

My favourite plant of the year: Carex atrofusca (Scorched Alpine-sedge) in the amazing flushes on Meall Garbh, Ben Lawers NNR - one of five known UK sites for the species.

Haven't posted here for a while so here's a very small #Ephydridae fly Hydrellia subalbiceps from a mire in the new forest. A frequent species in this sort of habitat but not often recorded. Larvae are unknown but will mine the leaves of one or more wetland plant species

Important change to Phaonia tuguriorum & P. scutellata in the UK checklist update in DD. Hopefully I've understood and the below is correct meaning the very common species with pale bases to the palpi is now P. signata and P. tuguriorum is now the name for the rare species

Hieracium eriophorum from the dunes at Moliets today. Very distinctive, very wooly, mostly prostrate and a local endemic to c. 80km of dunes in Landes, SW France

First sample sorted from @N_T_S Ben Lawers trip with @StevenFalk1 last month. This sample from Creag Loisgte, the classic alpine plant cliffs SW of the summit. 58 invert species, mostly flies including... 1/4

The very hairy and infrequently recorded montane #Empididae Rhamphomyia albosegmentata from Ben Lawers last month. Interestingly it's congener R. morio which was abundant in the same place when I collected in June a few years back was completely absent this July

Bibio pomonae female from Ben Lawers the other week. A large species with strikingly red femorae that is commoner in the north and west.

Cavariella saxifragae a cute little aphid on Saxifraga aizoides. New to Ben Lawers NNR, only two previous UK records the last of which was in 1961, otherwise only known from the French Pyrenees. Thanks to Bob Dransfield of the excellent InfluentialPoints website for confirmation

Tipula alpium male from Creag an Lochain, Ben Lawers NNR. A mainly upland but not strictly alpine species despite its name.

Hi @AlchemillaMan wondered if I could get your thoughts on this? Hoping its Alchemilla neomanifesta from a known grid on Creag an Lochain. Heavy rain made checking the petiole hairs difficult but they're definitely not completely adpressed. Thanks

Finally getting round to processing my photos from last week's trip. Here's Gentiana nivalis (Alpine Gentian) Ben Lawers' most iconic alpine.

Amaranthus blitum (Guernsey Pigweed) near Funland on Hayling Island this evening. An uncommon alien and a new species for me.

Huge thanks to the amazing Lewis Donaghy for the best botanical day ever yesterday with @davidjgibbs6 @GavinMaclean3 & Pete Stroh on Meall Garbh. Record numbers of Carex norvegica as well as C. atrofusca, C. microglochin, C. atrata 1/2

The snail-killing fly Pteromicra angustipennis female with its abbreviated wings. Caught crawling around on a ledge at Creag an Lochain, Ben Lawers NNR. Not a particularly upland associated species but a nice fly.

Dryopteris cristata (Crested Buckler-fern) at Wishmoor Bottom on the Surrey Berkshire border, its only remaining UK site outside of East Anglia.

Woodsia alpina in Cwm Glas Bach yesterday