Subject: thick headed fly
Location: Lancaster, PA
October 30, 2013 10:12 AM
Hi again
Don’t mean to be a pest, but thought you might be able to use some shots of thick headed-flies making maggots. I took these in my flower garden on Joe Pye weed, Lancaster PA. There are abundant bumble bees which I imagine is why they’re hanging around.
Melody McFarland
Hi Melody,
Pest? You have provided our archives with two marvelous additions of underrepresented species on our site. We only had two Thick Headed Fly images in the category, but because of posting your submission, we realized that we had several additional older postings that were never categorized. According to BugGuide, Thick Headed Flies in the family Conopidae are “usually found on flowers” and “Adults take nectar. Larvae are endoparasites of wasps, bees, ants, crickets, cockroaches, and some Diptera (mostly calyptrate); host group varies by subfamily.”
We are trying to post a few last minute submissions as we will be away from the office for the next week without internet connectivity.