COMMON NAMES: Flesh-Fly

GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION: RANGE Sri Lanka - Indonesia/Australia - Samoa - Cooks; Hawai‘i

COOK ISLANDS STATUS: Introduced - Recent, Naturalised; S.Group; N.Group (PK so far); Land

SIGNIFICANCE LIST: ; Disease spreader, Nuisance

KEY FEATURES: Grey with black markings, 8-11mmBL. HEAD lower-face silver-grey. THORAX grey with 3 black stripes. ABDOMEN grey with black markings. WINGS clear. Important feature: 5-20 long slender hairs (seen at 25x magnification) on propleura - a deepset plate on the anterolateral corner of the thorax adjacent to the lower part of the spiracle.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Of the Cook Islands fleshfly 7-15+mmBL Oxysarcodexia taitensis (7-9mmBL) has abdominal posterior segments yellow (vs grey and black); it also has lower face golden, as does the larger Peckia chrysostoma (10-18mmBL) (vs. silver-grey). Sarcodexia lambens is small, 6-7mmBL (vs. 8+mmBL). At 25x Sarcophaga peregrina (8-11mmBL) has long slender hairs on the propleura (vs no hairs). Generally species identification requires a complex array of microscopic features (by experts).