Hollow headed fly

Beatsy · Post by **Beatsy** » Thu Aug 23, 2018 1:45 am

This little fly's head got twisted at a funny angle and I couldn't get it moved back. I was going to abandon it, but in studying it under the stereo I was surprised to see nothing behind it's eyes and mouth parts - just a hollow void

So I stuck it on a pin and ran a quick stack anyway (136 images). This was with a 10x Mitty onto APS-C, so FoV is roughly 2.2mm after cropping a few streakies from the edges. I purposely over-exposed it a bit to get better light in the "head space".

I've included a couple of stereos too. The 2nd, close-up stereo is cropped from the first. I think this works for stereos (providing they're aligned when the crop is taken), but I find this one a bit harder to lock onto than the first. Might just be the skinny frame and too few features for context causing that though (?) Note you can see the back of the far eye visible in there - what does it connect to? Where's the brain - if any?

enricosavazzi · Post by **enricosavazzi** » Thu Aug 23, 2018 3:22 am

Just a wild guess, but is it possible that the head with "metal" reflecting composite eyes belong to a dead-and-dried specimen of a different species and somehow got stuck like a helmet onto the (much smaller) head of this dipteran?

Beatsy · Post by **Beatsy** » Thu Aug 23, 2018 3:31 am

enricosavazzi wrote:Just a wild guess, but is it possible that the head with "metal" reflecting composite eyes belong to a dead-and-dried specimen of a different species and somehow got stuck like a helmet onto the (much smaller) head of this dipteran?

No. I caught live and froze it two days ago. Got it out of the freezer late last night and took a look this morning (it remained in the sample bottle overnight). I only got as far as straightening a couple of legs before noticing the skew-wiff head. I suppose it's possible I knocked out the "innards" of the head while trying to straighten it, but I was watching closely through the stereo the whole time - so pretty sure I didn't.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Thu Aug 23, 2018 9:32 am

Judging from the state of the proboscis and abdomen, this little critter is dried out pretty badly despite the gentle treatment. I'll bet that when it was live, the underside of the head was expanded to something more reasonable.

--Rik