Trypetoptera punctulata

Trypetoptera punctulata (Scopoli, 1763)

Musca punctulata Scopoli, 1763: 338 (designation Cresson [1920]).

MATERIAL EXAMINED. — 1 ♂, M09- BOR1400 -T1-M1; 1 ♂, M09- SES1400 -T1-IN; 1 ♂, M09- SES1400 -T1-M1; 1 ♂, M09- BOR1400 -T2-M2; 3 ♂, M09- SES2000 -T3-M2; 1 ♂, M09- BOR1400 -T4-M2; 1 ♂, M09- SES1400 -T4-M1; 3 ♂ 1 ♀, M09- SES1400 -T4-M2; 1 ♂, M09- BOR1400 -T5-M1; 4 ♂, M09- SES1400 -T6-M2; 1♂, M11- LAR2000 -T5-M2.

DISTRIBUTION. — Palaearctic. From Ireland to Sakhalin, Fennoscandia to south of Europe and Morocco. Iran and Turkey.

COMMENTS

The habitats are open ground, humid, dry, and semi-xeric unimproved grasslands, up to and including subalpine grasslands; open, grassy areas in thermophilous Quercus forest; garrigue and Mediterranean scrub. All immature stages have been figured and described from laboratory rearings by Vala (1986), who also detailed the complete life cycle. Females begin to mate and oviposit about two to three months after their emergence in May. In the laboratory, the larvae attack and feed on various terrestrial gastropods, such as Candidula unifasciata (Poiret, 1801), Helix aspersa, L. cylindracea and T. hispidus. Most of the results were obtained from rearings on the viviparous L. cylindracea. The first-instar larvae effectively attacked the young snails present in the pallial cavity of the mother snail and moulted in situ to the second-instar larva. Although the first-instar larvae show a significant preference for Lauria Gray, 1840 as a host, older larvae attacked larger snails and did not successfully complete development in Lauria. The puparium, which is the overwintering stage, is usually formed outside the shell of the snail host, rarely inside the host shell, and without formation of a septum. The species is univoltine. The flight period is from May to November, with a peak in June.