What is this thing?
Location: Lancaster, PA
July 22, 2011 2:18 pm
Seen this sort of little guy three times in the last few years, so he can’t be that prolific, from what I can tell. One got into my apartment forever ago and it flew around like a wasp, and flexed its abdomen as if it were trying to sting after I’d smacked him down. (No stinger though from what I can see.)
Then yesterday, there was one zooming around my workplace and dive bombing people. I tried to take him out, but he escaped me.
Is this little guy a sort of fly? His mouth parts and eyes remind me of a fly and the rest of him seems wasp like. He’s not really that small either. He’s about the size of a wasp. He flies sort of clunky too, unlike a fly.
Signature: The Creeped out One
Dear Creeped out One,
You are astute in your observations that the face of this Hanging Thief in the genus Diogmites has the mouth parts and eyes of a fly because it is a Robber Fly in the family Asilidae.