Sarcophaga (Parasarcophaga) misera Walker

Dowton, Mark & Pape, Thomas, 2013, A key to the Australian Sarcophagidae (Diptera) with special emphasis on Sarcophaga (sensu lato), Zootaxa 3680 (1), pp. 148-189 : 162

Sarcophaga (Parasarcophaga) misera Walker

(Figure 36a,b,c)

Sarcophaga misera Walker, 1849

Sarcophaga gamma Johnston and Tiegs, 1921 Sarcophaga brunneopalpis Johnston and Tiegs, 1922

Morphological characters. Gena with setulae only or mostly yellow/white. Generally, occiput with setulae only yellow/white. However, some males have at least one row of black setulae behind the ocular setae, with setulae only yellow/white ventrally. Prescutellar acrostichal setae present. Proepisternum bare and males with long setulae on the hind tibia. 1st and 2nd abdominal sternites with short setulae in females. Body length 10–15 mm.

Geographical distribution. Australia (New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia)—AUSTRALASIAN/OCEANIAN, ORIENTAL, PALAEARCTIC.

Biology. Sarcophaga misera has been caught at decayed-carrion baits (by KAM), human faeces, carcasses and dead fish ( Das & Dasgupta 1982; Pérez-Moreno et al. 2006). This species has been documented as one of Queensland’s sheep myiasis flies ( Tryon 1917; referred to as Sarcophaga frontalis ) and as a predator of the snail Indoplanorbis exustus ( Parashar et al. 1997) .

Taxonomy. The third-instar larva was described by Ishijima (1967). DNA barcode sequences of S. misera have been deposited in both GenBank and BOLD.