This was the second new species I found last Sunday when walking around a local wildflower field, staring intently at all the Common fleabane (Pulicaria dysenterica). Despite all that staring, I’m amazed I noticed these, as they’re tiny. But, having said that, I was checking out fleabane on today’s walk and found another of these at a different location – and that really did amaze me as there are only three records of these in the Welsh national biodiversity database. Perhaps their tiny size means they’re easily overlooked.

As the blog name indicates, these are fruitflies, of the species Myopites inulaedyssentericae, which is a bit of a mouthful so perhaps you’d prefer their common name of Fleabane gall-fly, so called because their larvae create galls inside Common fleabane flowers. They can be identified by the pattern on their wings, and are on the wing during July and August.