Scorpion Fly

[WalterD]

Did you ever come across a creature that seemed to have the eyes of an insect, the beak of a bird and the tail of a scorpion?
I did not know about their existence but they actually do exist: the scorpion flies. This one was noticed by coincidence, when attempting to pick a flower on a cycling trip.
Indeed at first glance it resembles a moth, as one of our forum members mentioned in a post from 10 years ago.
Furthermore some general info I found: its official name is Panorpa communis, it's a common insect in Europe and only the males have the distinct scorpion tail.

The first three photographs show its head (cropped image), the front body and its aft part with wings and tail. Objective 2,5x/0.08 with normal reflected light. (special thanks to Ikea)
Photo 4 shows the head at 4x with the Ultropak setup. Photo 5 shows the same but at 6,5x with a better resolution, this is a composed image.
Photo 6 shows the anatomy of the outer tail part, with something that looks like a sharp claw.
A follow up with reflected light at higher magnification or the same treatment as the honey bee parts in one of my earlier posts, might be interesting.



Something else: Everybody say hello to my brand new website, which I can recommend! Better resolution pictures can be found here as well. www.waltermachielsen.com









Thanks for looking

[grgh]

Hi Walter

lovely images, had a look at your new website also first class.
Looking at your fresh water images i find the dreaded blue square instead of images in eleven photos.
all other images under different subjects no trouble resolving.
wondered if this was something you might need to look at?
perhaps it could be me that cannot resolve them.

George

[Charles Krebs]

Fascinating. That is one bizarre looking insect!

[WalterD]

Thank you!
@George; I recently updated that section and removed a number of images.
Here in Holland they're no longer on the server, probably other servers have stored it a bit different. Anyhow: new images are going to be added soon..

I've added one more composed image to give an idea of the insect in its entirety. The other image is a cropped part of the above mentioned one.

[carlos.uruguay]

Woowwww!