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Tag Archives: parasitoid

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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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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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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