Subject: What is this?
Geographic location of the bug: Caribbean side of Costa Rica
Date: 02/15/2018
Time: 09:18 AM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: This bug is about an inch and a half long. The body is orange-ish. It came out at night but was still here in the morning.
How you want your letter signed: Sherry Lidstone
Dear Sherry,
This is one beautiful fly, and the large eyes indicate it is a male Fly. Our best guess is that it might be a male Horse Fly, but we have never seen any images of Horse Flies with such unusual markings. Perhaps one of our readers will be able to assist us with a proper identification.
Thanks to Cesar Crash, we now know that this is a male Timber Fly in the family Pantophthalmidae. We have images of a female Timber Fly in our archives.
I think it’s Pantolphthalmidae, you have a female from Costa Rica: https://www.whatsthatbug.com/2013/05/22/horse-fly-from-costa-rica/ Adults do not feed, so they’re harmless.
Thanks Cesar. Now we wish we would have researched what the male Timber Fly looks like because we passed by those images in our archive.