File:Male Liancalus virens (face) (11623293384).jpg

Long legged Fly (7mm long) Liancalus virens (Scopoli, 1763) Alternative names: Dolichopus regius (Fabricius, 1805), Musca virens (Thunberg, 1789), Liancalus regius (Fabricius, 1805) According to the Fonseca 1978 key to British Dolichopodidae flies, Liancalus is characterised by having 6 equally strong scutellar bristles, 6 dorsocentral bristles; outer crossvein very oblique and bends of the discal vein very obtuse and smoothly rounded. The only British species is L virens which is described as a large species (6-7mm) with long, slender, rather sparsely and weakly bristled legs, and conspicuously long wings, which are somewhat variably brownish-marked. This colourful species is the largest of the dolichopodid or long legged flies in north western Europe. It is recognised as a marine insect "found in algae on rocks very close to the splash zone" and also in inland areas far from the sea. Inland, it lives amongst the mosses, liverworts and algae growing under bridges and beside waterfalls and fast running water. I think this specimen may have come from a little waterfall that leads into a pond in Christchurch Park, about 400 metres from my house. I found the fly in my conservatory at Grid Ref TM16644502, here in Ipswich, East Suffolk. The ID has been agreed by Tony Irwin, Senior Curator of Natural History at Norwich Museums, who told me of a previous record of this species in a garden in Ipswich in 1908 that was subsequently marked as an error. This being the case, this would be the first record of this fly in Suffolk.