Subject: Friendly fly from Manitoba
Location: Pacey Lake, Manitoba, Canada
June 12, 2016
Hi Daniel. I haven’t posted on this site for a while, so I thought I might share this one that I photographed a few days ago. The ‘smiley face’ image is a surprisingly common theme in insect decoration; especially if you have an active imagination. This, however, is by far the most perfect and obvious that I have ever seen. It’s a Marsh Fly (Sciomyzidae: Tetanocera plebeja), sometimes called snail-killing flies because their larvae are parasitoids of snails. Cheers. Karl
Hi Karl,
We were away from the office when you sent your wonderful image. There was no Marsh Fly category on the site, so a new category was created to accommodate your awesome image of a smiley faced Marsh Fly. According to BugGuide: “‘Noting the pattern on the wings is the quickest means of determining this common and widespread species.’ — Bill Murphy”