I am sorting through a bunch of Malaise trap samples from Thailand from which all the insects larger than about 2 mm have been removed. The absence of larger insects makes all the tiny ones stand out, so these samples, the “microfraction” are golden. They are full of treasures: usually overlooked tiny things like Chonocephalus, termitoxeniines, and weird Metopina group males. I’ll publish more photos soon, but here are a couple I photographed previously.
a Metopina group female
new phorine genus
Note the shieldlike crest on the back of the head in the second photo. Totally bizarre.
Microfractions represent yet another largely unexplored frontier of tropical phorid diversity. After nearly 30 years of doing this, I can still be amazed and awed by “my” flies.
Fantastic! I wonder if you will ever discover what purpose the shield/crest serves!
I dunno Jeff. Sexual selection? The shield reminds me of ceratopsian dinosaurs (Triceratops, etc).
Están hermosos estos pequeños.
It is so cool that you love what you do.
It has been scientifically proven that Homo sapiens, when fulfilled in life, grow better fruit. Double blind tests and everything were conducted. The results were published in my email which, of course, is a peer reviewed journal.
The part about fruit is true