Black Snail Parasitic Blowfly - Amenia albomaculata

Family Calliphoridae

This page contains pictures and information about Snail Parasitic Blowflies that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.


Female, body length 12mm

This Snail Parasitic Blowfly is metallic dark blue in colour with the bright orange colour face. On the thorax and abdomen tip there are the shiny white spots patterns.


Male


Female



This Snail Parasitic Blowfly species can be identified as follows;
- Scutellum with three pair of marginal setae.
- Postorbits yellow to orange.
- Dark blue-green to bluish violet.
- Male frons extremely narrow more or less meeting in mid line.
- Medium in size.
- Median marginal setae on T3.
- Male head very broad, over 1.15 times of thorax.
- Head of male golden orange.
- Bend of vein M obtuse, nearer to m-cu than to wing margin.




Found this female in Anstead Forest on Sep 2011. It was resting on the vertical surface of a medium size rock, could be waiting for something.

Reference:
1. Wildlife of Tropical North Queensland - Queensland Museum Publications 2000, p108.
2. Wildlife of Greater Brisbane - New edition, Published by Queensland Museum 2007, p138.
3. Morphometrics in the genus Amenia and revisionary notes on the Australian Ameniinae (Diptera: Calliphoridae), with the description of eight new species - Colless, 1998, Rec. Aust. Mus. 50(1): 85–123.
4. A systematic revision of the Ameniinae (Diptera: Calliphoridae) - Crosskey, R.W. 1965, Bull. Br. Mus. (Nat. Hist). Entomol. 16: 33-140. (23 August).