We found a fly today in what I would believe would be in the Infraorder Axymyiomorpha. That's as far down as I could hope to identify. It's wing was torn and it was just stumbling around on the ground. I thought it was a red paper wasp at first until we got a closer look. Any idea of what these guys eat or does the order vary too much in the way of care to take a guess?
Strange fly
- Thread starter LeilaNami
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- Dec 10, 2006
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Well, nobody is going to write in on this one probably, though I could be wrong. I was interested enough that you took the time to post that I looked this one in a billion bugs up and it jogged a recent memory.
On our recent trip to the Lake Quinault "Rainforest" (see the field trips sections on this forum), I collected something superficially (but still loosely) similar to your fly, but it was green, not red-orange! I thought it a wasp at first because of the colors, but a slightly closer inspection revealed it to be a fly (not terribly difficult so far). I then made the (probably lucky) determination that it was a kind of soldier fly as below:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/115366
Soldier flies are raised, I think as "Phoenix worms" in captivity as feeders. I couldn't begin to guess what your fly might eat, but I would be interested enough to learn if the information were offered up here!
If anybody wants to see it, a species of her fly is here:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/182417/bgimage
(again, a very loose comparison, but just jogged my recent memory)
On our recent trip to the Lake Quinault "Rainforest" (see the field trips sections on this forum), I collected something superficially (but still loosely) similar to your fly, but it was green, not red-orange! I thought it a wasp at first because of the colors, but a slightly closer inspection revealed it to be a fly (not terribly difficult so far). I then made the (probably lucky) determination that it was a kind of soldier fly as below:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/115366
Soldier flies are raised, I think as "Phoenix worms" in captivity as feeders. I couldn't begin to guess what your fly might eat, but I would be interested enough to learn if the information were offered up here!
If anybody wants to see it, a species of her fly is here:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/182417/bgimage
(again, a very loose comparison, but just jogged my recent memory)
Yep, I just can't figure out if it's specialized or not. I'm going to take a wild guess that it's predatory and try and feed a cricket or something. I can't find any info whatsoever.