Album of Cornish Diptera

This is the beginnings of a down-loadable file of the Flies that I have managed to identify so far in Cornwall, VC1, mostly from the far West, the part known as the West Penwith.

The hope is, that it will encourage you to take a closer look at Flies, instead of swatting them, some have fascinating lives, mostly rather disgusting, with the maggots living inside other insects, plants or animals, (even in us, though not in Cornwall).

Those included just happen to be those that I have an image of, some very common ones are not included simply because I have not taken a photo, if you've ever tried to swat one, you'll appreciate that it's difficult to get close to them and it is also extremely difficult to be sure what species they are without catching them as there are many that look very similar in the field.

There are thousands of species that could be seen in Cornwall, but I have made a start on a tiny proportion of them. If anyone has any interesting photos of flies that were taken in Cornwall, and would let me include them in the Album, please contact me gbernardh@btinternet.com.

I have included a little information about each entry, WING LENGTH, to give an indication of size, although this can vary a lot in some species, DATES SEEN, taken from the Cornwall Biodiversity Database, ERICA, this can help with identification as do any notes that I include about HABITAT, BREEDING ETC.

Have included a photo of each species, as I think this is a vital part of trying to identify a species that anyone is not familiar with. There are many excellent books on identifying insects with pages and pages of keys, but not a coloured picture anywhere, apart from on the cover.

I realize that some of these images that I've used are pretty useless, some of the best were very kindly supplied by Leon Truscott, but they were the best that I have to hand and many better ones are easily found online nowadays, when you know which ones to search for.

I am always glad to hear from you if you think that you have spotted a mistake, as being only an amateur entomologist, there could well be some.

Contact: gbernardh@btinternet.com

Download: ALBUM of CORNISH DIPTERA | Index (Alphabetical) | Index (Numerical)
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