Bibio pomonae

Bibio pomonae, common name red-thighed St Mark's fly or heather fly, is a species of fly (Diptera) belonging to the family Bibionidae.

Bibio pomonae
Bibio pomonae, female
Bibio pomonae, male
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Insecta
Order:
Diptera
Family:
Bibionidae
Genus:
Bibio
Species:
B. pomonae
Binomial name
Bibio pomonae
(Fabricius, 1775)[1]
Synonyms
  • Pullata funestus Harris, 1776
  • Tipula funestus Harris, 1776
  • Tipula marcifulvipes De Geer, 1776
  • Tipula pomonae Fabricius, 1775

[2]

Description

Bibio pomonae can reach a length of about 10–13 millimetres (0.39–0.51 in), while the length of the wings reaches 8–12 millimetres (0.31–0.47 in).[3] The basic body color is shiny black, with a black long abdomen, deep crimson-red femurs and dark tibiae and tarsi. Front tibia show a pair of large spurs. Wings are milky-white with darkened veins on the costal area and a dark spot on the leading edge. The 10-segmented antennae are relatively short and thick. Males and females are very different, as the holoptic males show very large eyes and a flattened abdomen, while the females have small head and eyes and a sharp abdomen.[4] The larvae are reddish brown.

Biology

Adults feed mostly on nectar and are important pollinators.[4] Larvae develop during Fall and Winter feeding on dead leaves, compost, decaying organic matter and Poaceae roots [3][5]

Adults are late summer flyers, but they occur from May to October.[3] [6] In Norway's Hardangarvidda it has been observed that they appear in large numbers every third year, which suggests the larvae take three years to develop.[7]

Distribution

This species can be found across most of the Palearctic ecozone (Europe and North Asia), but in southern Europe can be found only in the mountains.[8]

Habitat

This fly occurs in hedge rows of hill countries, on moorland and mountain birch forests, in woodland edges, fields and in wetlands.[3]

gollark: Fear it:
gollark: (Taiwan holds basically all leading edge semiconductor production and I believe a lot of the older stuff. Invading could physically damage it in hard to fix ways, and would probably lead to the loss of most of the people working on it and their knowledge; even ignoring this, it relies on materials from elsewhere which could be cut off. Basically everyone needs the chips produced by TSMC, and if they just stopped existing so would... roughly all consumer electronics for several years.)
gollark: It would not.
gollark: I don't think they can actually militarily do anything to Taiwan without imploding the entire world economy for several years.
gollark: It's unreasonable that people's life chances are affected by who they happened to be born to.

References
  1. Freeman, Paul; Lane, Richard P. (1985). "Bibionid and Scatopsid flies, Diptera: Bibionidae & Scatopsidae". Handbooks for the identification of British insects. 9 (7). London: Royal Entomological Society of London: 74. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. Biolib
  3. Commanster
  4. Wildlife Trust
  5. Triplethorne & Johnson (2004). Borror's Introduction to the Study of Insects, Brooks-Cole. 715-716
  6. Key to Highland Bibionids
  7. Borgstrøm, Reidar and Skartveit, John, Russefluga (Bibio pomonae): Eit viktig insekt i høgfjellsøkosystemet, Naturen, p.20-24 DOI: 10.18261/issn.1504-3118-2018-01-04
  8. Fauna Europaea
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