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I photographed these near Semnan, North Iran. Could someone help me Id them?
They showed some interesting behaviour, I think the male trying to mate, but the female not willing? Or courtship display?

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Some metres further, I photographed this male of the same species (I presume)

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Heteropogon, perhaps?

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Heteropogon sp. for sure :)

The species is much trickier as I cannot see very important details. And I am not sure you don't have two different species there. See that the solitary male doesn't have white bold flecks on the fore tarsi (very important feature) or white pollinose marks on the abdomen, which the male of the first one does have. Might be an optical effect though...

Anyway, it/they should be in the group lehri/pyrinus/scoparius, in case it is something already recorded for Iran.

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Thank you Piluca! That is one step closer.
Are there any details that I need to make a larger crop of (if they are on any of my photos)? Or are the details you are talking about only visible by binoc or similar?

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Great pictures Johan! I agree with Piluca that some important features are not well visible. What key did you you use Piluca? I would certainly add H. ornatipes as a possibility. The white hair on the front tarsi of the male, as can be seen in the first pictures, is a character for ornatipes but we can't see the mid legs very clear which should have bushes of black hairs on the middle of the tibia. The single male does seem to have these at the apex of mid femur and on the middle of the mid tibia, but we can't see the white hair on the front tarsi ;-( But these hairs are mainly on the inner side, so maybe this male is hiding his white socks!

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Thank you, Reinoud. Then we will stick with Heteropogon for now.

I found this article on the internet:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237655204_Iranian_Asilidae_Insecta_Diptera

There are only two Heteropogon species on the checklist, H. lugubris and H. pyrinus. Unfortunately it is from 2007 and I assume there may be much more to be found in addition to this list. Or probably more has already been found.

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Sorry, I found a newer checklist, which has many more species, also of the genus Heteropogon
https://www.zobodat.at/stable/pdf/LBB_0046_2_1379-1446.pdf

All species Piluca mentions occur in Iran, at least H. lehri occurs in Mazandaran

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I have been looking for a translated description of H. lehri I do have it in Russian ;-( But I can't read it.... According to Engel lugubris has entirely black legs. It is a bi weird that H. ornatipes is ignored in many texts although it is mentioned for Turkey and Israel.

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hmmm.... that's a pity, Reinoud.

By the way.... in the solo male the whitish inside of the front right tarsus is visible on most photos. You can see it is more or less the same colour of the perch that bordering it.

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Hi, Reinoud and Johan :)

I worked both with Engel (1930) and Lehr (1970). As I couldn't see all features (only managed to rule out lugubris , nubilus and succinctus), I checked the list for Iran by Ghahari et al. (2014). In the list, I saw ornatipes and manicatus are not listed for Iran, so I assumed the chances are very low. But, just in case, I said:



Always covering my back ;)

Regarding ornatipes, the hairs on thorax doesn't seem to match too well...

Anyway, as I couldn't make sure I was seeing correctly, I decided to leave it in the group of species with 'white socks', as Reinoud says (but excluding ornatipes, with doubts; I know manicatus well enough to be sure it is not that species ;) )

And yes, lovely pictures of lovely creatures!! :)

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Thank you for the additional information, Piluca! :-)

Are these articles (Engel and Lehr) available somewhere on the internet? Or would it be possible to send them to me?

Best wishes,
Johan