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UK Nature  > Flies  > Graphomya maculata




Scientific Name:   Graphomya maculata
Common Name:   Muscid Fly

Graphomya maculata, more commonly known as a Muscid Fly, has an orangey-brown patterned abdomen in the males but females have a grey/black pattern (as above). Both have distinctive stripes on the thorax.

Found in meadows, hedgerows and roadside verges nectaring on various flowers, especially umbellifers. On the wing from May to September/October. The larvae are predatory, feeding in muddy pools and damp leaf litter. Common and widespread in England and Wales.

I am reliably informed that this could in fact be Graphomya picta, but to tell the difference between the common G. maculata and the scarcer G. picta depends on several distunguishing features, one of which is that in G.picta tha abdomen is longer than it is broad, and vice cersa in G.maculata. From memory, and also from what I can see of the abdomen in this photograph, it would appear broader than than it is long, which would indicate that this is G. maculata.










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