Ah, animals after my own heart. We have some dipterans from reader Mike McDowell: an array of photos that truly shows the diversity and beauty of this group. His notes:
How about cool flies?Sometimes when the birding is slow and I’m not in tiger beetle country, I search for interesting flies. It’s astounding what’s out there for the curious macro photographer. Peacock Flies and Long-tailed Dance Flies have interesting behavior. Are you familiar with them? Share as many as you care to with your readers! [JAC: I shared them all!]All were photographed in southern Wisconsin.
Peacock Fly – Callopistromyia annulipes:
Fly – Minettia Lupulina (don’t know of a common name):
Long-tailed Dance Fly – Rhamphomyia longicauda:
Stilt-legged Fly – Rainieria antennaepes:
Ebony Jewelwing – Calopteryx maculata:
Long-legged Fly – Family Dolichopodidae (unsure of species):
Picture-winged Fly – Delphinia picta:
Robber Fly – Proctacanthus hinei:
Copulating – Proctacanthus hinei:
Robber Fly – Laphria divisor [JAC: clearly a bee mimic!]:
Hunchback Bee Fly – Lepidophora lutea [JAC: read about this weird fly at the link]:
Mydas Fly – Mydas clavatus:
Absolutely wonderful flies (and damselfly)! I used to live in southern WI and never noticed the weird smaller ones you posted.
Great photos! What equipment are you using?
Thanks!
For all of these shots I used a Nikon 1 V1 camera, Tamron f2 60mm 1:1 macro lens, plus a flash & diffuser.
Mike
Absolutely terrific! Several of these are on my hit list for this coming summer, but I doubt that I can match you.
The Peacock fly and the Picture winged fly are members of a group of fly families whose species walk around while waving their colorful wings. They are rather comical in their seeming inability to not strut their stuff when walking. These displays seem generally intended for each other, but some species are thought to use their wing patterns to mimic spiders.
You’d like the series:
http://birddigiscoper.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-peacock-fly-callopistromyia.html
A very good series. I encountered this fly last summer, but could not get nearly as many pix. It kept backing up, staying just out of focal range of my camera.
These pictures are wonderful. The variety and beauty even of animals such as flies never ceases to amaze.
O/T, but the BBC has just screened the first of three programmes entitled ‘Nature’s Wonderlands: Islands of Evolution’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2016/03/natures-wonderlands, about the ways in which evolution can take off in island habitats. They are presented and narrated by Richard Fortey, and the first, on Hawaii, included a discussion of the radiations that have arisen from a small number of ancestral species of Drosophila. I am looking forward to the second and third programmes, about Madagascar and Madeira. They will be available on the BBC I-player, and will hopefully reach a wider audience.
Beautiful macros.
There are some (quite a few!) dipterans with annoying (indeed very annoying!) habits which tend to drag down the reputation of the whole order. These pictures help redress the balance! Beautiful!
Splendid pictures! I’m rather fond of robber flies, and didn’t know the american genus Proctacanthus.
I wondered who was responsible for such a poetic (?) name (meaning “anal spiny flower”). The culprit is Justin Pierre Marie Macquart, a french entomologist who described the genus in his monumental “Insectes Diptères exotiques nouveaux ou peu connus” (1838-1855).
Note that the first picture shows a male, and that the female’s “flower” is not clearly visible in the second one.
What a diverse group of fly photos. It pays to pay attention to the small things.
What is the peacock fly standing on? I was amazed at how closely it resembled the fly’s coloration.
The Mydas fly looks to me to be a wasp mimic.
Gorgeous photos! More on Dolichopodids here: https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/last-chance-to-see-pretty-much-everything-including-these-dolichopodids/
Great to revisit those pictures again! Not so much your haunting penultimate line, though: “Oh well, in 20 million years or so the planet will be beautiful again (that’s about the time it takes for the ecosystem to recover from a mass extinction).”
You probably know about this, but here in the UK, the BBC have just started a series by Prof. Richard Fortey on the subject of how the workings of evolution can be seen in greatest detail on isolated volcanic islands around the world – including lots of pictures of rapidly evolving fruit flies and other insects! It’s called “Nature’s Wonderlands: Islands of Evolution” and airs on BBC4. Maybe PBS will take it up in the USA?
Perhaps but they’ll have to change the title. It’s still only a theory over here.
So I gather. I think you’d be hard pressed in the UK or Europe to find more than a handful of people who believed in Creationism. American ideas sometimes leave us baffled.
more to a fly
that meets the eye
rich in colour, shape and size
who would have thought
of lowly flies
certainly not I,
great post.
These are stunning, Mike! Great work and thanks for sharing them.
The jewel wing is gorgeous!
Exquisite! Thank you!