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Tag Archives: fly

Nemorilla floralis

17 Tuesday Jan 2023

Posted by sconzani in insects

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Tags

British flies, British insects, fly, Nemorilla floralis, parasitic fly, parasitoid

Another day, another summer fly. This one, from last May, is a little bristly beauty called Nemorilla floralis, whose name means something like ‘little visitor to the flowery glade’ (according to a tweet by @ivysuckle). Unfortunately, this fly doesn’t live up to its pretty name as it’s a parasitoid, laying its eggs in the living larvae of various micro moths and butterflies.

230117 Nemorilla floralis

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Acletoxenus formosus

03 Thursday Nov 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

British flies, colourful fly, fly

And just like that yesterday’s cute little fly has a name, Acletoxenus formosus, thanks to a fellow biodiversity recorder, Graham. Amazingly, my sighting appears to be just the second record of this species in Wales, though I’m sure that’s due to the fact that it’s under-recorded because of its tiny size, rather than because of its rarity. Once I knew its name, I was able to find a short video of its trademark sideways shuffle, thanks to wildlife photographer and enthusiast Phil Booker, who also gives a bit more information about the fly in the description box of his video.

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Another mystery fly

02 Wednesday Nov 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects

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Tags

British flies, fly

Silly me thinking that this tiny fly was so distinctively marked that it would be easy to identify. It may be part of the Chloropidae family of flies but then again it may not. I think it’s a shame the online resources for fly identification are so limited or require a degree of familiarity with the various fly families that the lay person simply doesn’t have. It certainly doesn’t encourage more people to become interested in flies, yet they can be such visually attractive little creatures.

221102 Chloropidae

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253/365 Tachina fera

10 Tuesday Sep 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

British flies, fly, parasitoid, parasitoid fly, Tachina fera

Flies are fascinating!

190910 Tachina fera (2)
190910 Tachina fera (3)

This bristle-backed orange-and-black beauty, Tachina fera, is commonly seen in Wales and England any time between May and October. These flies produce two broods over the summer months but their life cycle is perhaps not what you might think. Like almost 300 other fly species in Britain, these are parasitoids – the eggs they lay on plant leaves hatch as larvae that burrow their way inside the bodies of other larvae, the caterpillars of several species of moth, which they then proceed to eat to death. It’s a larvae-eat-larvae world out there, folks.

190910 Tachina fera (1)

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It’s a biggie

05 Sunday Aug 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Britain's largest tachnid fly, British flies, diptera, flies, fly, Tachina grossa

At first glance I thought this big brute was a hoverfly, ’cause I know there are some very large hoverflies, but one look at those eyes told me otherwise. Meet Tachina grossa, the largest Tachnid fly in Britain and Europe.

180805 Tachina grossa (4)

As you can see, it feeds on pollen and nectar and, though it’s harmless to us humans, it’s no friend of moths. The female Tachina grossa lays her eggs on living larvae, in particular the large hairy caterpillars of the Oak eggar moth and the Fox moth. The fly larvae eat the caterpillars from the inside, eventually but not immediately killing them.

180805 Tachina grossa (1)
180805 Tachina grossa (3)

So, it may look kind of cute in the photograph below but I’m just glad I’m not a large hairy caterpillar.

180805 Tachina grossa (2)

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Birth notice

17 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, plants, wildflowers

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Ficaria verna, flies, fly, leaf mines, leaf mining fly, leafminer, Lesser Celandine, Phytomyza ranunculi

I was handing out the cigars last Monday!
Now, you might well think me more than a little mad to be excited about the birth of a fly but this was the first time I had tried rearing one … and it was actually successful, which bodes well for the fact that I’m intending to take part in a fly-rearing investigation this summer (more on that closer to the time).

180317 Phytomyza ranunculi (2)
180317 Phytomyza ranunculi (3)

The fly is Phytomyza ranunculi, a creature whose larvae often make their home in the leaves of Lesser celandine (Ficaria verna). I blogged about this leafminer, its larvae and the pupa here, and it is that pupa which finally hatched earlier this week. I had been told it would take about 3 weeks to hatch but it was, in fact, longer than that – it was 6 February when I found the pupa and 12 March when it hatched, so 34 days in total.

180317 Phytomyza ranunculi (1)

Now, here I must admit to a rookie error. As it was well over the 3 weeks, I had almost given up on its hatching so, on Monday night, when I had a sudden notion to open the container, I didn’t look inside first. The fly popped straight out, perched on the edge for a very brief time – and I managed to get just one photo, and then it flew off. I’ve searched for it in my flat, and it did a quick fly by when I was washing the dishes yesterday, but I haven’t been able to find it, neither to take more photos nor to let it outside.

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Leafminer: Phytomyza ranunculi

11 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Buttercup, fly, fly larva, fly puparium, leaf mine on buttercup, leaf mine on Lesser celandine, leaf mines, leafminer, Lesser Celandine, Phytomyza ranunculi

You might think there are no insects around in winter but you’d be wrong, as I’ve been discovering in the past week or so. In my checks for blooming wildflowers, I’ve seen the odd Lesser celandine and Buttercup flower and, looking more closely at the plants, I’ve noticed leaf mines on some. And where there are leaf mines, there are insects laying eggs and larvae developing from those eggs to create the mines.

180210 Phytomyza ranunculi (6)
180210 Phytomyza ranunculi (5)

These particular mines are created by Phytomyza ranunculi, an incredibly tiny fly which I haven’t yet seen. But I have seen – and can show you here – a larva and a puparium. I brought home a couple of Lesser celandine leaves, intending to take better photos of them, but I didn’t reckon on them shrivelling up overnight. On the positive side, when I picked up one leaf, a tiny larva was sitting underneath, presumably having popped out of the leaf as it dried up.

180210 Phytomyza ranunculi larva (1)
180210 Phytomyza ranunculi larva (2)

A couple of days later I brought home another couple of leaves, for the same purpose, but this time left them in a sealed container. The next day, when I opened it, I saw this tiny speck in the bottom of the container and realised a larva from one of the leaves must have pupated. I’m trying to hatch it so I – and you – get to see the fly. Fingers crossed!

180210 Phytomyza ranunculi puparium (7)
180210 Phytomyza ranunculi puparium (8)

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November at Cosmeston

02 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by sconzani in autumn, insects, nature, parks

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British dragonflies, Common Darter, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, flies, fly, hoverfly, Mary Gillham Archive Project

I’ve only had a couple of visits to Cosmeston Lakes Country Park this month because my volunteer work on the Mary Gillham Archive Project has been taking up a bit more time as we try to get as much as possible done before the project effectively finishes at Christmas – though, having said that, I did spend four hours at Cosmeston last Friday trying to replicate, for the project website, photos Mary had taken in the early days of the park. These are a couple of those: Mary’s photo of the west lake in September 1987 on the left, and my photo from the same spot thirty years later on the right.

171202 Cosmeston west lake Sep 1987
171202 Cosmeston west lake Nov 2017

But I digress … apart from the berry-eating visitors, the Redwings and the Mistle thrushes, and finally managing to grab a couple of half-decent photographs of a Green woodpecker, I haven’t found anything particularly noteworthy bird-wise at Cosmeston during November. I have, however, been impressed by the numbers of insects still around, despite the fact that it has been noticeably colder, with daytime highs in the low teens and several overnight frosts.

171202 common darter (1)
171202 common darter (2)
171202 common darter (3)
171202 bumblebee

On 5 November, the ‘fireworks’ at Cosmeston were these lovely little Common darters. In an area shaded from the cool westerly wind but warmed by the bright sun, each had claimed itself a fencepost to bask on. And, nearby, a lone bumblebee looked like it wanted to snuggle for warmth into this seed-head ‘duvet’ of Old man’s beard (Clematis vitalba).

171202 fly (1)
171202 fly (2)
171202 hoverfly

On 24 November, though my focus was on finding the exact spots where Mary had taken her photos, I did still have one eye on the wildlife and noticed quite a lot of flies about. Like the dragonflies of two weeks earlier, these two flies and one hoverfly were favouring sheltered spots on wood to make the most of the sunshine.

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No flies on me!

06 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Coenosia sp, Dagger fly, Empis sp, Eriothrix rufomaculata, Eurithia anthophila, Flesh fly, flies, fly, Graphomya maculata, Sarcophaga sp

Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched? Often, when I’m out on my wanders with wildlife, I get a little tingling in the back of my neck as if my extra-sensory perception is trying to tell me I’m being stared at. When I look around, there’s never a person or a bird or an animal but there’s often a fly, just sitting quietly on a leaf or a twig, minding its own business though focussing its gigantic eyes in my direction. Is it wondering if I’d make a tasty meal? Is it curious about what I’m doing? Is it staring in case I might turn up something it could eat? Is it monitoring a potential threat? Do flies think?

160906 1 Sarcophaga sp Flesh fly
160906 2 Coenosia sp (Muscidae)

I will never know the answers to those questions but their watchfulness has made me notice the flies around me and, amazingly, some of them are rather lovely little creatures. May I present to you: a Flesh fly (Sarcophaga sp.); one of the Muscidae family, Coenosia sp.; Eurithia anthophila; Eriothrix rufomaculata; a Dagger fly (Empis sp.); and Graphomya maculata.

160906 3 Eurithia anthophila
160906 4 Eriothrix rufomaculata

(By the way, that feeling of being stared at has a label, scopaesthesia, and, despite several series of scientific lab experiments, the phenomenon remains unproven. In my case, the tingling is probably a tiny spider I’ve picked up amongst the bushes.)

160906 5 Daggerfly Empis sp
160906 6 Graphomya maculata

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Innominate flies

21 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

diptera, flies, fly, fly quotations, quotes about flies

Flies may not be everybody’s favourite mini-beasties but they come in amazing colours and patterns, and you might be surprised how many famous people have mentioned them in their quotations.

160720 flies (1)

‘A closed mouth catches no flies.’ ~ Miguel de Cervantes

160720 flies (2)

‘As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.’ ~ William Shakespeare

160720 flies (3)

‘Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.’ ~ Honore de Balzac

160720 flies (4)

‘A spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.’ ~ Benjamin Franklin

160720 flies (5)

‘Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still.’ ~ Isaac Watts

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About me

sconzani

sconzani

I'm a writer and photographer; researcher and blogger; birder and nature lover; countryside rambler and city strider; volunteer and biodiversity recorder.

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