dung fly

Wim van Egmond · Post by **Wim van Egmond** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 5:58 am

This is one of my favourite flies. It is called dung fly but it does not feed on dung. It hunts other flies and insects. But you can often see it on dung because it lays its eggs in the dung and the larvae are also predators feeding on the larvae of the dung eaters. tasty!

They have a nice yellow coat:)

Wim

puzzledpaul · Post by **puzzledpaul** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 6:07 am

Excellent job, with the colours really complementing each other

(seems we've been getting some of these in our garden, too ...)

pp

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:49 am

Very nice stack Wim. Look at that detail where the wing attaches to the thorax

I wonder what that feathery thing does (left on the wing attachment)

puzzledpaul · Post by **puzzledpaul** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 2:24 pm

<< I wonder what that feathery thing does >>

From my experience with similar flies, it's an indicator that shows me I've over exposed the pic or been 'over the top' with levels / curves

Probably an arm(wing)pit duster ... or a sensor of some sort?

pp

MacroLuv · Post by **MacroLuv** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:50 am

I wonder what that faucet lever like thing does.

It is visible on the puzzledpaul's pics too.

Wim van Egmond · Post by **Wim van Egmond** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 1:26 am

I'll post a close up of the wing base. It has these reduced wings called halteres. They act like a sort of gyroscopes in flight. The diptera family of insects (flies and mosquitos and relatives) are excellent flyers because of this specialised wing design. There should be a lot of info on the web about this. But I don't know what these feathery structures do. It would be interesting to sort out this anatomy!

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/20 ... .Zo.r.html

Wim

puzzledpaul · Post by **puzzledpaul** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 1:48 am

<< They act like a sort of gyroscopes in flight. >>

Interestingly, they're also used when not flying - just settled on a leaf / blade of grass - which is subjected to gusts of wind

Amazing creatures ...

pp

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 4:09 am

Awesome photograph Wim, the haltere does look like a faucet handle

Amazing some of the organs an insect has but then when you think about it, our ears help us to maintain a certain degree of balance. Get a really bad ear infection and see how clumsy you are.