Scorpionfly scavenging a meal

Images of undisturbed subjects in their natural environment. All subject types.

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MarkSturtevant
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Location: Michigan, U.S.A.
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Scorpionfly scavenging a meal

Post by MarkSturtevant »

Scorpionflies are somewhat odd looking insects that get their name from the scorpion-like tail that males have, as shown below. This is actually their genitalia.
ImageScorpionfly by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

These insects are carnivores, but they probably get their meals by scavenging on most occasions. So one day I was deep in the woods (slightly lost, to be honest), when I
came across a female scorpionfly vigorously probing into a bird dropping.
ImageScorpionfly feeding from a bird dropping by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr

After some time, she managed to wrestle out the carcass of an insect. It looks like a rove beetle. I thought this was pretty interesting!
ImageScorpionfly and bird dropping, pt. 2 by Mark Sturtevant, on Flickr
Mark Sturtevant
Dept. of Still Waters

dunksargent
Posts: 251
Joined: Sun Apr 25, 2010 2:50 pm
Location: Cambridgeshire UK

Post by dunksargent »

Very interesting; thank you for the story!

dunk
And now for something completely different.

SteveB
Posts: 71
Joined: Sat Nov 25, 2017 12:12 pm
Location: Pretoria South Africa

Post by SteveB »

Wow! A very interesting observation.

Yawns
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Joined: Sun Dec 20, 2015 9:18 am
Location: Benavente, Portugal

Post by Yawns »

This is new to me .. scavangers .. because I assumed they fed on flowers.
I have never seen many .. maybe for 5-6 times and only on two occasions could I get close to take decent pictures ...
but now I understand why I always saw them near the campsite .. maybe because of the garbage ..

I have a picture where the fly is using the sexual organ as a tire-jack :)
YAWNS _ (Y)et (A)nother (W)onderful (N)ewbie (S)hooting

Sippyjug
Posts: 65
Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2018 9:29 am

Post by Sippyjug »

This series gets my standing ovation!

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