Long Legged Fly
S4, profile, abdomen spots
Ellura
Long Legged Fly
S9, profile (on it's back)
 
                      
Long Legged Fly (Hydrophorus praecox)Class: Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta)
Order: Flies (Diptera)
Family: Longlegged Fly (Dolichopodidae)     iNaturalist Observation
Species: Long Legged Fly (Hydrophorus praecox)
This Photo:     🔍S4, profile, eye & hair🔎

Thank you Tony Daley for confirming the id of this species for us

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere
~3.5mm long. They look much larger, but that's because nose to wing tip they are ~6.5mm long, and have a 14mm legspan.
Like all long legged flies, these are also metallic, but it's not nearly so obvious as most.
It's difficult to know with such small insects what is a real colour and what is a camera artifact as they just look like a little blur with the naked eyes (with with mine anyway

Similar to our other water floating fly, which is a different family.
This one has a line of white hair through the bottom of it's eyes and two white stripes on it's back that are made up of *very* short white hair.
Notice how green S9 is compared to those photographed outside - possibly camera artifacts?

Similar Species: Water Floating Fly (Brachydeutera sydneyensis)

Copyright © 2016-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 22-Nov-2016
This species is an Australian Native Species, not listed in the SA Murray Mallee Survey of 2010.