@coolbugs / coolbugs.tumblr.com
We are in peak bug-finding season - I have taken over 800 photos so far this month! At least this horrible hot and humid weather is good for something...
(From top to bottom: Say's mantidfly (Dicromantispa sayi), marsh fly (Tetanocera sp.), and firefly (Photuris sp.)
TFW you take the dogs out to "do their business" and you find a new species, genus, and family of fly in your yard. Oh and did I mention it's freaking JANUARY so the bug pop is close to zero around here? Hooray for climate change? lol
Check out this cool af HAMMERHEAD FLY (probably Sphyracephala brevicornis). Admire it's bizarre eyestalks. Try to ignore that I boffed the photos a bit on this one - I am out of practice!
Happy Fly Day Friday!! Please enjoy the excellent wing patterning on this tiny, non-biting midge, Psectrotanypus dyari.
Happy Fly Day Friday! Please enjoy this colorfully-eyed deer fly (Chrysops geminatus)
A wee hoverfly (Toxomerus geminatus) resting on a blade of fennel.
HAPPY FLY DAY FRIDAY!!!
Found these cool flies at my blacklight the other night, thought they were two different species, but they are actually a male and female of the same species, Stylogaster neglecta, a type of thick-headed fly. Can you tell which one is the female?
Happy Fly Day Friday!!! I was actually trying to photograph the white insect under the crane fly (bonus points to you if you recognize Tiny White Dude) but hey, sometimes you take what you can get. iNaturalist says this is band-winged crane fly, Epiphragma fasciapenne.
Happy Fly Day Friday! Please enjoy this robber fly (Leptogaster sp., I think)
Happy Fly Day Friday! Please enjoy this spiky Tachinid fly (Ptilodexia sp. I think), the embodiment of how I feel right now...
This odd-looking fly emerged from the leaf litter when I set up my moth light last week. I recognized it as a Hippoboscid (louse fly) but wasn’t sure what it could be - turns out there is only one option: a deer ked, Lipoptena cervi. The deer ked, native to Eurasia, is a type of biting fly that attack deer and other cervids.
Posting this photo in an insect group on Facebook revealed a few other folks that have been seeing these flies lately. It’s likely folks that is related to it being deer mating season around here. Be sure to watch the creepy video of it climbing up one of the ropes that holds up the sheet. It reminds me of a beefy, top-heavy weightlifter :-).
Whoa, found a crane fly with all 6 legs!
Happy Fly Friday!!!
Happy Fly Day Friday! Please enjoy this absolutely gorgeous ornate snipe fly (Chrysopilus ornatus). From June 2019.
One good thing about blacklighting, you can do it alone in the woods and not have to worry about coronavirus...so it needs to hurry up and get warm because the world is gonna be wrecked for a while...
(deer fly, Chrysops sp., from July 2019)
Snagged some more cool insect jewelry at Brimfield this month, check out this cool fly pin and a unique Lampyridae (firefly) brooch!
It’s Fly Day Friday! Please enjoy this pair of stilt-legged flies (Micropezidae family) that I photographed last July.
Found this cool wood gnat (Sylvicola alternatus) at the moth light last month. I love when flies are easy to id!
The other day when it was warm-ish, I went out to hunt for bugs to photograph, and the only live thing I found was this cluster fly (Pollenia sp.), sitting on top of a giant pile of snow, three feet from the door I came out of :-).
Thanks to Benjamin A. Coulter for the id.
