American Morio Bee Fly
Hemipenthes morioides
Description 2
A small, dark bee fly that is very similar to H. eumenes in our region. See that species for the differences.
Notes 2
Worth reading the remarks at http://bugguide.net/node/view/365221. H. morio in the US is probably a synonym of H. morioides, both could be synonymous with H. seminigra. I'm inclined to follow the BugGuide treatment.
At http://bugguide.net/node/view/702073/bgimage entomologist Joel Kits wrote, "H. moriodes has white edges on the mesonotum like H. eumenes, but the dark area in the wing doesn't extend past crossvein r-m in eumenes". I think that means "past the crossvein r-m in the discal cell".
Note that white racing stripes on the thorax seem to be optional, so not useful in separating from eumenes.
Numerous records at CAS are listed as "Hemipenthes seminigra", which is a junior synonym of H. seminiger (maybe), but they seem to be the same thing, whatever you call them. That's how BugGuide seems to treat them, and I'm again going to follow their expertise (http://bugguide.net/node/view/365221), though keep in mind that Ávalos-Hernández (2009) treats H. seminigra as a valid species separate from H. morioides, and as the senior synonym to H. eumenes.
Supposedly has a "strongly coarctate first posterior cell." Cole (1969) (who treated Hemipenthes as a subgenus of Villa) wrote that "The only known records for V. (H.) seminigra are from Sask. and Utah," by which I think he meant Saskatchewan and Utah. I'm not sure where that places the CAS specimens.
Sources and Credits
- (c) R.J. Adams, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by R.J. Adams
- (c) Ken-ichi Ueda, some rights reserved (CC BY)
