Compost Fly
He's got her clamped
Compost Fly
Female, ventral
| Compost Fly He's got her clamped | | Compost Fly Female, ventral | | ||
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | |||
| Order: | Flies (Diptera) | ||||
| Family: | March Fly (Bibionidae) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Compost Fly (Bibio imitator) | ||||
| This Photo: | Wings | ||||
| Other name: | Garden Maggot | ||||
Thank you Reiner Richter & Even Dankowicz for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found in the Adelaide Hills and possibly elsewhere A large number of flies can have their gender determined by the distance between the top of their eyes. Note here the male's eyes are touching, the females are well separated. We asked Tony Daley if there were taxon groups of flies that had this trait. He replied "It seems there are examples of male holoptic eyes across the board, and can be defining for family, genus, or only at species level. Sometimes occurs in females too, eg Cecidomyiidae. I note that most Acalyptratae don't." We've noticed some Tachinidae have "holoptic" eyes (ie continuous visual surface), but Rutilia don't. The opposite to "Holoptic" is "Dichoptic", most female flies have dichoptic eyes. Small headed flies have females with Holoptic eyes & Robberfly eyes are dichoptic. | |||||
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