Long Legged Fly and Flesh Fly

danielj

March 25th, 2007 at 12:00 am

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Long Legged Fly and Flesh Fly
WhatsThatBug, (my apologies if you’ve received this multiple times due to technical difficulties with my computer) I have a few photos to submit for your site, if you find them up-to-par and/or needed. – Photo A: I noticed that you have a few long-legged fly photos, but they are from “artistic” angles. Great photos! But I thought you’d also like this straight on shot, for easy identification. Photo B: A cane fly, of course, affectionately called a “mosquito hawk” here. These guys swarm from March to April (+/-). They’re no problem unless they get into the house where you better catch it quick or risk letting it die a painful death in an incandescent lamp (the upturning bowl kind). The halteres (balancers?) are visible behind the wings. This appears to be a female with egg-swollen abdomen, but I’m no expert. – Photo C: One of the photographs is of a fly I didn’t see on your fly pages – the flesh fly. At least, that is what I gather from the description here: http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2111.html. She (?) amicably posed near my husband’s garden. The fly probably completed much of it’s lifecycle on a dead squirrel my kids found in the yard last week. It was about 1 cm in length. … Thanks for all of your work and helping me differentiate between scary helpful bugs and those I should genuinely avoid. I hate to kill another creature, and it’s worse when I do it out of self-defense (or defense of my kids playing in the backyard) to find that the “wasp” I’ve killed is really a garden/people-friendly bee fly or mydas fly and no real threat. Your work is really appreciated!
Kaylene
Bossier City, (Northern) Louisiana