Tag Archives: photography

Weird female Phoridae – part 1

female Aenigmatias


In a previous post “What is so great about phorids,” I showed photos of 3 strange looking phorid flies. The first of these is a female that has a body form we call limuloid, after the horseshoe crab Limulus. This is a defensive body form that allows the female fly to live within a nest of ants or termites. The rounded body form, with few large setae, makes it difficult for an ant or termite to grab them (at least, that is the theory!). They used to be all categorized in a group called the Aenigmatiinae, but our knowledge of phorid phylogeny is changing as we know more and more about the groups, so the Aenigmatiinae probably won’t be around as a name much longer.

The name bearing genus for this former group is Aenigmatias, a northern hemisphere genus that includes about a dozen species. The females have a classic limuloid shape, whereas the males are much more normal in appearance and carry the females around in copula. These flies are parasitoids of Formica ant pupae, although no modern work has been done on their natural history.

in copula pair of Aenigmatias

All of the rest of these flies live in termite nests. That makes me skeptical, in part, that they form a natural group with Aenigmatias. Here is the Southeast East Asian genus Epicnemis:

female Epicnemis

The Old World tropical genus Psyllomyia is found in both Africa and Southeast Asia:

female Psyllomyia

The Southeast Asian genus Palpiclavina is less limuloid than some of the others, as it has retained wings and large setae:

female Palpiclavina

But the most limuloid of the phorid females are those of the genus Thaumatoxena, whose abdomens are completely fused into a carapace-like shell:

female Thaumatoxena

Note that the large round things on the head are not eyes; they are antennae. The true eyes are extremely small, and on the very side of the head.

Flies as food


This morning I had to catch a fly, any fly of a decent size, to feed a jumping spider I wanted to photograph (jumping spiders are almost too easy to photograph; they have such great faces!). While I was looking for a fly, I got to thinking about a frequent question: what good are flies? Or, a variant, “what are flies good for?” Or, even more direct, “what are flies for?”

Of course, such questions are related to human values. As scientists, we usually don’t think that way; hence the common sarcastic answer “what good are humans?” What people mean by these questions, I suppose, is what “role” do they play in the environment. One of the answers that I read frequently in textbooks or the popular press is that flies and other insects are important as “food for birds and other animals.” I hate this answer. It is as if other animals, especially birds, are more important or significant than insects. In this way, the incalculable goods and services provided by flies, such as pollination and breakdown of organic materials, can be discounted, and flies dismissed as just obnoxious pests.

Humans are so oriented towards the macro organisms in the environment. There is so much more to see and admire if we look a little closer at the smaller things. There are about 10,000 species of birds in the world, but at least 150,000 described species of flies. One of the largest families of flies, the Tachinidae, has at least as many species as the birds, but doesn’t even have a common name! We scientists have to promote more fly literacy.

I caught a fly for my spider, a common blowfly, Lucilia sericata– a “greenbottle fly” to most people. I know what my spider thinks it is for.

 

What is so great about phorids?

mating pair of Psyllomyia

Let’s face it, every fly aficionado has his or her favorite group. The most popular groups of course are the large, attractive ones like flower flies (family Syrphidae) and robber flies (Asilidae). My favorite group, the one I do research on, is called the humpbacked or scuttle flies (Phoridae). I don’t really like either of these common names, however, so I just call them phorids.

Among dipterists, those who work on phorids are considered to be very brave, or, less flatteringly, crazy. There are about 4000 described species, but we think the true total is closer to 30,000 to 50,000 species.  Thus, every time we start working on groups , we end up with 10 times as many species as we started with. That’s a lot of biodiversity.

What makes it so rewarding, however, is that there are so many new things to see. I already posted about an amazing new phorid from Thailand. There are plenty more where that came from. Working on phorids is like being a naturalist in the 1800s, exploring and seeing things for the first time. You literally find new things everywhere you look, even in your backyard.  There is probably more diversity among species of phorids than there is within any other family of flies. As proof I offer three photographs showing the range of morphology within this family :

female Aenigmatistes

female termitoxeniine

female Vestigipoda

I will write in future posts what these flies are, and what they do.  For now, I hope they prove my point about phorid structural diversity.  Of course they have a huge diversity of lifestyles as well, which is more fodder for future posts.

Why have a fly blog?

There are hundreds of natural history blogs out there, and dozens of them are about insects. Isn’t that enough?

 You would think so except for one small problem: flies represent about 10% of the world’s biodiversity, yet almost nothing is written about them. Think of all the hundreds of books about birds: field guides, natural histories, stories about people chasing an elusive life list total, etc. Then realize there’s only about 10,000 species of birds, the size of a single family of flies! For flies, what do we have?

 – A fair amount of scientific publication: descriptions, taxonomy, phylogeny, and keys.

 – Some really wonderful manuals of the Nearctic, Palearctic, and Central American regions, as well as catalogs of the species from the various regions. Not bedtime reading.

 – In the public realm, for interested laypeople, there is Oldroyd’s “Natural History of Flies”, and the Amateur Entomology Society handbook on flies, the former of which is really dated (having been published in 1964). More technical but still highly readable is the recent “Diptera diversity: status, challenges and tools” by Thomas Pape, Daniel Bickel, and Rudolf Meier.

 – On the web, we have diptera.info, an excellent site for chatting about flies, and links to a few newsletters, especially the North American Dipterists Society.

 In my opinion, that’s not enough. There are so many cool things in Diptera that need to be talked about! I can go on and on about just phorids, and probably will. But I can’t do, however, is cover the whole order Diptera in a news coverage manner. Sorry, don’t have the time. What I will show you is what I see on a day-to-day basis and try to convey why I think it is so interesting. I hope you keep reading.

 

Gardening for flies 3 – adding filth

In my continued quest to attract subjects for my photography, I decided to try to attract the drone fly, Eristalis tenax, a relatively large flower fly that mimics honeybees. Their rat-tailed larvae are said to be found in extremely foul aquatic conditions, such as cesspools, and runoff from feedlots. Not wanting to deal with feces in attracting these flies, I decided to try just using plant material. I put in a few rotting peaches, some soil, and some mulch in a plastic container and filled about half full with water. I then let it sit for a month, keeping the water level up so that it didn’t dry out. A cautious sniff confirmed that I had replicated the high degree of foul stench that I was trying for. It was contained, however, in a small area, that didn’t affect the rest of the yard.

So far, no drone flies have been noted, but a different and equally interesting fly was attracted. This fly, commonly known as a “boatman fly” is a species classified in the family Platystomatidae. Its scientific name is Pogonortalis doclea, and like many denizens of the city, it is a non-native. Somehow it has arrived here from Australia and become naturalized to our city.

Its behavior is interesting: it constantly waives its wings, which are marked with distinctive patterns of black. This display is usually considered either a threat to other males, or a welcome to females. Whichever, these flies display all the time, as well as projecting their mouthparts in and out. Look at this video and you’ll see what I mean. Disgustingly, these flies feed on the foul water, and in you can see thousands of maggots writhing around it.
http://youtu.be/isH20jaD9gU

The filthy water also attracts other flies, including Megaselia scalaris, one of the most polyphagous (feeds on anything) of all the phorid flies. It is found around the world, having been successful at living wherever humans live.

I’ll keep my eye on the filth container, and see what else turns up. I still haven’t given up on the rat tailed maggots, which might show up next year when I increase the amount of filth.

Gardening for flies, part 2

Having had my garden for about three months now, I can say that there is always something interesting to see and photograph in it. Regular visitors include many flower flies, commonest of which is the little blood red flower fly, Paragus haemorrhous, followed by Allograpta obliqua, Syritta pipiens, and a Platycheirus species. During the sunny parts of the day, there are ALWAYS flower flies.

     

Another group of frequent visitors are bees. Mostly, however, they are not the common honeybee; instead, they are native bees that are much more welcome, in my opinion. Native bees do not sting people unless severely provoked, and they come in a variety of shapes and sizes from tiny little, almost gnat-sized bees to lumbering fuzzy bumblebees. They are generally faster moving than honeybees, and thus more difficult to photograph, but if you focus on a popular flower and wait, you can usually catch them eventually.

      Finally, there are the occasional visitors, that show up to feed on specific type of pollen. Among them are a couple of types of beetles, including dermestid beetles (shown below) that are occasional household pests, and the wedge-shaped tumbling flower beetles of the family Mordellidae.

all photos are copyright B. Brown, 2011. all rights retained

An extremely weird new phorid fly from Thailand

The group of flies that I work on is called the Phoridae. They’re one of the most diverse, yet poorly known groups of flies in the world. They have some crazy body forms and crazy life histories, some of which I’ll share in this blog.

This is a amazingly weird, probable new genus of phorid fly collected by a Malaise trap in Thailand. Mike Sharkey, from the University of Kentucky, and I had a 3 year grant from the National Science Foundation to inventory insects in Thai national parks. Among the material collected, as you might imagine, are many new species and new genera, since very little collecting this type has been done in Southeast Asia.

Look at the scutellum on this thing- it’s almost as big as the scutum! The wings look like those of some phorids that enter termite nests and tear off their wings, since they’ll be in the nest for the rest of their lives. The lack of large bristles, and the general shape of the body also implies that this fly lives in social insect nests. Unfortunately, we only have one specimen. It would be really interesting to see the female of this species!

Gardening for flies

 Brian Brown’s instant flower fly garden 

                It probably doesn’t occur to many people to collect plants specifically to attract flies to their garden, but during my work on flower flies, I started getting more and more interested in photography again. I could go to the Arboretum, or somewhere else with many flowers in order to photograph interesting flies, but I wanted something closer to home. Also, I started thinking about what would be an optimal garden or collection of plants to attract flower flies. I needed to do some research. 

A flower fly - Eupeodes fumipennis

Flower flies are generally considered a gardener’s friend. The larvae, or maggots, of the most common backyard species feed on aphids, scales, and other softbodied insects. By attacking the gardener’s worst enemies flower flies become a potent ally.

 In order to make these allies more welcome in our backyards, it is necessary only to plant a few, low-cost flowers. These provide the nectar and pollen that flower flies need to fuel their flight and mature their eggs, respectively. Not just any flower will do, however. Flower flies appreciate flat flowers whose pollen is easily reached. They also have different requirements than honeybees, so planting a garden for flower flies will not attract swarms of stinging invaders. It will attract native bees, though, which provide a welcome addition to the flower fly parade.

 I wanted to see which flowers would be best for attracting flower flies to my backyard, so I went to my local (Los Angeles area) nursery and just watched the activity in their displays. It quickly became apparent that flower flies were concentrating on just a few of the offered scores of plants available. Therefore I bought one plant or flat each of the flies favorites: Japanese Photinius, pink and purple cosmos, white “mini-margarite” daisies (Chrysanthemum paludosum), and yellow Argyranthemum. The total cost for my mini garden was $18. I brought them home, set them in the sun, and waited.

 Within half an hour I had flower flies coming to them. Instant success! Since then, I have had a continual parade of flower flies, native bees, and other interesting insects to enjoy and photograph. I also added a couple more plants: sweet alyssum, which is another flower fly attractive plant I observed in the nursery, and bog sage, something I’d seen attracting many flies at the Arboretum. I put the whole garden in four plastic pots for more maneuverability.

 This low-cost, minimal garden will bring a constant supply of colorful, beneficial insects to your yard, which will increase the number of predators attacking aphids and other pests, and boost your backyard biodiversity. It takes up so little space that it could even be put on a balcony or postage stamp lawn and still be successful. Of course, if you have more space, you can put out more than one of each plant, and you will probably attract even more interesting creatures.

Instant Flower Fly Garden

Next posting: what has been attracted to my instant garden, and which plants are best.