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Can someone help me with a name for this nice Asilidae. Sarapogon is a wild guess on my part and I've no idea really. Nothing I can find seems to have orange femurs.

From central lowland France, June 2011, photographed on a forest track.

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Also looks like Dasypogon cf diadema, female redlegged version

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You are quite right Reinoud. Thanks for your help. I am now certain it is D. diadema. I realised I photographed a male on the same day nearby too. Fritz Geller-Grimm's study of this species is a fascinating read. http://www.geller...e/dasy.htm

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First is Molobratia teutonis, the second black one Dasypogon diadema. Check their charateristics through the site of Fritz Geller-Grimm.

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I think you are right Mark but there is one thing weird for molobratia, the antennae should be red/yellow instead of black. These seem to be black but the tomentose stripes are ther on the scutum also colouration of legs is M. teutonis more then Dasypogon and so are the spots ont abdomen.

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Reinoud, you are quite right, the upper is also Dasypogon because of the antennae you mention. Confusing is the hint of yellow tomentosity on the lateral margin of the thorax en the silver spots on the abdomen. See Part in key of Geller-Grimm. I was to quick because otherwise the coloration is so close to Molobratia. See also a good Molobratia you identified earlier http://diptera.in...pid=154421.

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Thanks for the extra discussion Mark and Reinoud. It seems to me that many female D. diadema do have dusting on the thorax. There are several examples, presumably reliably IDd, in the Diptera.Info gallery, for instance.

I checked the original photos for the antennae colour. They are not black, but are a dark reddish brown (darker than the leg colour). Again, it seems to me that this is more like some of the D. diadema females than the M. teutonis, which seem to consistently have bright yellowy orange antennae.

And there is jizz. In all the pictures of M. teutonis it is engaging in some sort of leg waving or posturing. D. diadema just seems to hunker down to the ground or sit up on its haunches if hunting.

I also suspect that D. diadema is maybe a bit more thermophilic than M. teutonis, but this is just a hunch. The habitat these pictures were taken in certainly seemed perfect for D. diadema. The soil is coarse sand and these flies were in some numbers.