Micropeza brevipennis
Identification: Hind femora yellow with one distal dark ring. Fore coxa long and bulging, yellow with a proximal blackening and a distal cream patch. (cf M. corrigiolata which is clear yellow and doesn't bulge)
Wing short, not quite reaching the end of tergite 6. Haltere brown
Female abdomen: pleural membrane with a distinctive colour pattern consisting of a continuous brown (burnt umber) stripe above a cream-coloured belly (can be darkened). (cf M. corrigiolata with patches of colour). No colour on the hind margins of the tergites.
Male abdomen: Tergites black without hind margin colouration. Pleural membrane not usually much visible in males.
Head: Face black with white dusting by the eyes (which continues on to the genae). Antennal segments all black.Size: 5mm
Images: The main image is a schematic of the female. Photographs in the field: Nikola Rahmé and Nikita Vikhrev.
Distribution
Europe: Countries (published), online at Fauna Europaea, Occurrences at GBIF
The association with Lucerne (Medicago sativa) is speculation, perhaps only amounting to a clue as to where to find M. brevipennis in the field . Should larval development prove to take place in root-nodules throughout the genus as a whole then this particular member of the Leguminosae is a likely candidate. Miroir provides botanical survey data in which he reports finding M. brevipennis (specimen not retained)
Séguy: "Distincte de toutes les autres espèces du genre par le corps noir et les ailes réduites."
Ozerov, 2008: Body colour black. Antennae completely black, arista white. The coxae of the legs as a whole are yellow; femora of fore legs in basal half yellow, blackish in apical half; femora of middle and hind legs yellow, only at the very apex with a dark ring (Fig. 10); the tarsi of all legs are black, sometimes the tarsi of the middle and hind legs have a yellowish tint. Abdominal sternite 5 of male finger-shaped (Fig. 16). Surstyli as in fig. 3 (translation D.Sumner) 5mm
"Unknown, but supposedly similar to M. corrigiolata. The species seems to be more thermophilous, preferring lowland wet meadow habitats (Soos, 1981)"(Roháček, 1990). + "occurring in warm open habitats (lowland meadows and alfalfa fields, steppe meadows)" (Roháček, 2012)