[reference: Dipterist's Digest (Secnd Series) Vol. 9 No. 1 page 66]

Ceromya flaviseta (Villeneuve) (Diptera, Tachinidae) recorded in Oxfordshire - Ceromya flaviseta was added to the British list by J. Ismay (1998, Dipterists Digest (Second Series) 5: 28-29) based on material taken from Burnham Beeches, Buckinghamshire in 1995. In 2001 (27.v – 2.vi.2001) I ran a Malaise trap on the Warburg Nature Reserve, Oxon (SU719880), which produced one female Ceromya flaviseta, which I believe is only the second British record. Very little is known about this species and it seems to be rare wherever it occurs in Europe – the host is unknown but it is presumed to be a parasitoid of Lepidoptera larvae (H-P. Tschorsnig and B. Herting, 1994. Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde. Serie A (Biologie) 506, 170 pp.). In the standard key (Belshaw, 1993. Handbooks for the Identification of British Insects. Tachinid Flies. 10 (part 4a)) it keys to Aphantorhaphopsis verralli (Wainwright, 1928) but it can be separated from this species because C. flaviseta does not have the anal vein reaching the wing margin and has hairs all along vein R1. The Malaise trap was sited on the edge of a sunny chalk downland ride, backing onto an area of thin scrub. I would like to thank the owners, the Wildlife Trust for Berks, Bucks and Oxon, for giving me permission to survey the site.

CHRIS RAPER, [postal address withheld] 
Email: chris.raper@tachinidae.org.uk, Web site: http://tachinidae.org.uk