Christian Lawson-Perfect @christianp

6 posts6 participants0 posts today

**Colin Purrington** @colinpurrington@flipping.rocks · 12h *

Colin Purrington @colinpurrington@flipping.rocks

Amazing video by Adrian Smith (North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences) of various parasitic flies taking off. Some provide views of the halteres, too, which move as if they were still wings. #insects #flies #diptera #halteres #biology #flight #wings https://www.instagram.com/p/DImi1nlybaj/

InstagramAdrian Smith on Instagram: "Parasitic flies!"2,206 likes, 28 comments - dradriansmith on April 18, 2025: "Parasitic flies!".

**Bryan Wright** @catselbow@fosstodon.org · 2d

Bryan Wright @catselbow@fosstodon.org

This little lance fly spent a long time tasting my fingers. Eventually she decided that I wasn't edible and went to look elsewhere for dinner.

We see small, shiny black fly, polished to a high gloss like a new Model T just rolling off the assembly line, but her lines are rounded and futuristic. She stands on an infinite plain of creased pink skin, head lowered and delicate mouthparts gently kissing the surface. Her eyes are giant ruby ovoids. Her amber-tinted transparent wings are swept up and back. She's a beautiful organic machine.

#fly #flies #diptera

**Colin Purrington** @colinpurrington@flipping.rocks · 3d

Colin Purrington @colinpurrington@flipping.rocks

Found this Houdini fly (Cacoxenus indagator) lurking around one of my bee hotels today. They are kleptoparasites of mason bees (Osmia spp.) and are not native to North America. They are the number one reason why nesting tubes in my area (Pennsylvania) should be cleaned during the winter. BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR THEM. #BeeHotel #InsectHotel #MasonBees #bee #bees #flies #diptera #inaturalist #insects

Small fruit fly with banded abdomen and red eyes, resting on the wood frame of my insect hotel.

**sohkamyung** @sohkamyung@photog.social · 4d

sohkamyung @sohkamyung@photog.social

A Bee Fly, Brachyanax satellitius, spotted at Thomson Nature Park on 22 Dec 2024. The second shot shows it in mid-flight.

Within a day of posting it on iNaturalist, it was identified, showing the power of a world-wide social network for nature observations.

So far, this is the first and only observation of Brachyanax satellitius on iNaturalist [ https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/255849619 ].

A small fly with swept back wings resting vertically on a wooden post. It has a black body with large brown eyes. Its wings are black nearer the body and transparent nearer the wing tips.

The same fly, captured in mid-flight, showing more of its body. The body is completely black, except for two small white spots on the sides and a circle of white at the tip of the abdomen.

#iNaturalist #Nature #Photography

**Grooobv** @zorbama@veganism.social · 5d

Grooobv @zorbama@veganism.social

It was a relatively nice day, so I went out to take some photos. Here are some bugs I found.
Not sure what the black fly is exactly, could be a mosquito, could be a kind of midge.

A small black mite with red legs between the legs of a spider

A spider, a fly of some sort and a mite sharing common space

A browns spider with a small black mite between their legs

#spider #mite #diptera

**Bryan Wright** @catselbow@fosstodon.org · 5d

Bryan Wright @catselbow@fosstodon.org

Last Saturday was Insect Acrobatics day:

* Crane flies like the one in this photo skimmed the creeks, bounced off the water and zoomed up to fight? mate? with each other.

* Water striders grappled with each other on the creek, sometimes so enthusiastically that they'd flip into the air and splash back down.

* Large carpenter bees visited tiny flowers that couldn't support them, dumping the bees on their butts.

A swarm of midges around my hat were the spectators.

We look down on a large crane fly standing very erect on its long skinny legs, half of them on a waterlogged dead leaf and half on wet sand. The fly is taking a break from its performance and resting here on this little sandbar in the middle of the creek. The fly's abdomen is long and skinny, but its thorax is a muscular lump. Its wings are thin, like wasp wings, and stick straight out from the body. They're decorated in colored panes like stained glass, in shades of orange, brown, and white. The fly's head has large hemispherical compound eyes of green and brown, and an elongated snout with complicated grasping mouthparts. Sunlight sparkles on the water and the sand.

#flies #Photography #diptera

**Bryan Wright** @catselbow@fosstodon.org · Apr 19

Apr 19

Bryan Wright @catselbow@fosstodon.org

Beautiful flies from Ant Lab:

https://youtube.com/shorts/gZJLHh8IPEo?si=CpEEVhLajCsKYUt-

youtube.comBefore you continue to YouTube

#fly #flies #diptera

**sohkamyung** @sohkamyung@photog.social · Apr 18

Apr 18

sohkamyung @sohkamyung@photog.social

A lovely fruit fly, genus Themara, spotted at the Wallace Trail at Dairy Farm Nature Park, Singapore on 21 Dec 2024. Unlike other fruit flies, this one has eyes on stalks, resembling the family of Stalk-Eye Flies.

On iNaturalist [ https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/255752267 ].

A fly with a dark-red body. The wings are clear, with a pattern of dark patches. The eyes of the fly are at the end of stalks sticking out horizontally from the head, like the eyes on a hammerhead shark.

#iNaturalist #Nature #Photography

**Nico V** @icetroll@mastodon.xyz · Apr 15

Apr 15

Nico V @icetroll@mastodon.xyz

Eristalis pertinax (Scopoli, 1763)

Published under #CC0 here https://flic.kr/p/2qXT5pf

Close up shot of a brown hoverfly on a green leaf.

#Diptera #Brachycera #Muscomorpha

**sohkamyung** @sohkamyung@photog.social · Apr 14

Apr 14

sohkamyung @sohkamyung@photog.social

A pair of mating fungus Gnats, genus Allactoneura, spotted at Dairy Farm Nature Park, Singapore on 21 Dec 2024. They are only a few mm in length, so steady hands were needed to take these shots.

On iNaturalist [ https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/255752288 ].

A pair of small flies facing away from each other but joined at the abdomen. They are black with a white underside and white patches on the abdomen. They are resting on a leaf.

#iNaturalist #Nature #Photography

**David Epithet** @David_Epithet@mstdn.social · Apr 11

Apr 11

David Epithet @David_Epithet@mstdn.social

Spotted soldier fly (Stratiomys maculosa), Lakeview Mountains, California, today
#nature #NaturePhotography #bugs #bugstodon #flies #diptera #SouthernCalifornia

A black and yellow fly, resting on a narrow, strap-like leaf. The fly has a broad, black abdomen with large, pale yellow spots along the margins.

The same fly, with transparent wings folded, resting on my fingertip.

**Ashes and Dust** @friesen5000@mstdn.ca · Apr 10 *

Apr 10 *

Ashes and Dust @friesen5000@mstdn.ca

There is a species of fly whose larvae live inside shed moose antlers. Apparently the males camp out on the antler and jockey for prime positions (ie spots where females will want to deposit their eggs). Not sure this is proper Wikipedia verbiage but it is notable: "the males are astonishingly bellicose". This world is nuts. #TIL #diptera #insects #ecology
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protopiophila_litigata

en.m.wikipedia.orgProtopiophila litigata - Wikipedia

**Albert Cardona** @albertcardona · Apr 6 *

Apr 6 *

Albert Cardona @albertcardona

Maggots. We really don't give then enough credit. They can do so much with so little:

"Sensation of electric fields in the Drosophila melanogaster larva", Tadres et al. 2025 (Matthieu Louis' lab).
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)00299-4

#neuroscience #Drosophila #ElectricSensing

**Albert Cardona** @albertcardona · Apr 5 *

Apr 5 *

Albert Cardona @albertcardona

Front legs, who needs them right? It's not only mantis who dispense of them for walking. But to be fair midgets don't really ever walk. So the sensory neurons at the tips of their legs (hence flies can taste with their feet) may here have become part of a second pair of antennae.

Microtendipes sp. midget in full double antennae mode. The bushiness of its actual antennae suggests it's a male.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/268734651
#iNaturalist #Diptera #midgets #entomology

iNaturalistGenus MicrotendipesMicrotendipes from Hedgerley Close, Cambridge, Anglaterra, GB on April 5, 2025 at 11:23 AM by Albert Cardona

**Bath Nature** @BathNature@ecoevo.social · Apr 1

Apr 1

Bath Nature @BathNature@ecoevo.social

Dark-edged Bee-fly today near #Bath #Somerset #UK
#Nature #Wildlife #UKWildlife #NaturePhotography #WildlifePhotography #NatureCommunity #Insect #Insects #Fly #Diptera #Spring

A brown hairy fly with a long proboscus and dark edges to the wings. Fly is in flight, low down in some grassland

**Bath Nature** @BathNature@ecoevo.social · Mar 31

Mar 31

Bath Nature @BathNature@ecoevo.social

Dotted Bee-fly (Bombylius discolor) in flight today in #Bath #Somerset #UK.
#Nature #Wildlife #UKWildlife #NaturePhotography #WildlifePhotography #NatureCommunity #Insect #Insects #Fly #Diptera #Spring

A Dotted Bee-fly - a hairy brown fly, the abdomen has a black tip. It has a long proboscis and wings with dots on them. The insect is in flight.

**Colin Purrington** @colinpurrington@flipping.rocks · Mar 31

Mar 31

Colin Purrington @colinpurrington@flipping.rocks

I recharged my mosquito traps yesterday: fresh water, some leaves, then a sticky card in the upper part to make sure the pregnant females don't escape. Wish stores would sell these so that more people used them. #mosquitoes #mosquito #insect #diptera