Day 11 of #InsectAdvent & one of my favs Cephenemyia trompe aka The reindeer nose botfly If you are a reindeer & this is your view be prepared to have eggs squirted into your nostrils! Mothers track hosts over long distances before firing her eggs @royentsoc.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social

Day 10 of #InsectAdvent & the Christmas flirting has ramped up This male Robberfly, Pegesimallus teratodes, has striking, feather-like scales on its hind legs, likely used for female attraction during courtship. (& cleaning the dance floor) @royentsoc.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social

Day 9 of #InsectAdvent and our thoughts turn to a Christmas vacation. And where best to go than Christmas Island where we can find Syritta maritima - one of the compost hoverflies whose larvae (the munching maggots) will recycle our leftovers @royentsoc.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social

Day 4 of #InsectAdvent Have you been to the office party, wearing your finest & then spilt food on it? You need a personal hoover-meet Braula coeca (bee-louse or bee-rider). Found on bees, they feed on the food passed between the bees. Food may have to be sacrificed but your image won't be

Day 7 of #InsectAdvent There’s always the one team member that gets legless. And so did this mosquito. Luckily for us this specimen was identified as Aedes macintoshi - an absolute youngster having only been described in 1985! @royentsoc.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social

Day 6 of #InsectAdvent Done all your prep for you Xmas party? Decorations up, food organised and your outfit looking amazing. Then relax like this Bombylius discolor - sitting down in its finest waiting for the action to start… @royentsoc.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social

For #FlyFriday or #Flyday why not a new podcast with me talking flies with Paul McGuinness on #WildLives (ignore the one of the worlds experts - many better than me!!) #bbcwildlife podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/w...

Day 5 of #InsectAdvent The imbiber. The one that’s always finishing every last drop of wine Rhingia campestris - the Heineken fly so called as it refreshes the parts other insects cannot reach..cheers @royentsoc.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social

#FlyFriday new revision of assassin-fly genus Acronyches Williston, 1908 (Asilidae: Leptogastrinae) with @ento-allan.bsky.social out - 4 new species from Central + South America - flies catch spiders in their web (see www.inaturalist.org/observations... doi doi.org/10.4289/0013... #asiloidflies

Look at those eyes! #flyday #bugskye #entomology #macro

Legs, wings, spines abound! Fungus gnat fornication. Making more lil' flies. #Mycetophilidae Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

Ahhh happy Sunday night everyone. The wonderful @nhcooper123.bsky.social and @joshlukedavis.com thought it wise to ask me to talk about my fav specimens… Enjoy. @dipterists.bsky.social @royentsoc.bsky.social @amentsoc.bsky.social

Thanks for making last week's 34th General Meeting of the Dipterists Society (ESA/Portland) a success! We were glad to see you in person or on zoom & hope you enjoyed it. We'll post more from the meeting, including links to recordings, soon. We hope to see you next year & at other DS events!

#FlyFriday beautiful dark-colored assassin fly Diogmites nigripennis (Macquart, 1847) (Asilidae: Dasypogoninae) with wasp prey - collected at La Selva, Costa Rica in 2010 - 1 of 125 species of assassin flies known from this lowland rainforest habitat - n2t.net/ark:/65665/3... #asiloidflies

Excited to announce that Fly School IV will be 27 July-9 August 2026, in Costa Rica! Applications will open in January. @dipterists.bsky.social @flygirlnhm.bsky.social @bertonemyia.bsky.social @teamdiptera.bsky.social @entcollnet.bsky.social @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @entsocamerica.bsky.social

Are any Fly School alumni at ESA?

Reminder: we'll be meeting next Tuesday evening for the Dipterists Society 34th General Meeting at @entsocamerica.bsky.social

We’ll have an announcement about Fly School 2026, which will be shared here as well, but join in person or virtually if you can! @flygirlnhm.bsky.social @bertonemyia.bsky.social

A FLYing visit to the Fynbos, Western Cape, South Africa A fabulous opportunity to film in an incredible habitat (thanks BBC)- in terms of flora its unique but maybe not the most pristine in terms of disturbance. That didn't seem to perturb the flies...SO MANY BEEFLIES @dipterists.bsky.social

The wonderful @yukihaba.bsky.social and I went beneath London to help solve the riddle of the Underground Mosquito... Debunking rather than spelunking ;) @marakat.bsky.social @petrathepostdoc.bsky.social

ATTENTION: The deadline to submit talks for this session is tomorrow! Please DM me for the link if you would like to submit a presentation for consideration. Thanks and please share!

Reminder to submit your abstracts soon if you are interested in presenting!

Friday night is party night. So what is one to wear? How about some mites? the top fly - a Sphearoceridae is spotting a clustered arrangement of mites, whilst the Chloropids are going for a bold single statement piece of one large hitch-hiker #flies #phoresy #mites

It’s the @amentsoc.bsky.social annual fair & I’m here with the @dipteristsforum.bsky.social Lots of great fly talk & some great exhibits including these from some of the younger members of the AmEntSoc - aren’t they great? #entomology

#FlyFriday Apiocera pica Norris, 1936 (Apioceridae, USNMENT00832111) from Wandoo National Park, Western Australia collected in 2011 - more info here n2t.net/ark:/65665/3... #asiloidflies #USNMDiptera

Tired of doom scrolling? Want to help a PhD student out? Check your collection for Promachus (and friends) and I'll be forever indebted! If you need an excuse to get outside and go collecting this weekend, this is it! #Asilidae #Diptera

Dark taxa are extremely diverse organisms that remain largely undescribed due to small size, subtle differences, & few experts. Take this quiz to find out what you are - I'm a gall midge! whatdarktaxonareyou.static.domains/insect-quiz.... by @vivianfeng.bsky.social & @flyliceresearch.bsky.social

**Attention fly enthusiasts!** We're looking for presenters for the Dipterists Society General Meeting at ESA @entsocamerica.bsky.social in Portland, OR (November 11th) If you're interested in giving a talk, please DM me for a link to submit a title/abstract. Deadline to submit is October 10th.

Open call for presentations for the Dipterists Society 34th General Meeting, taking place in Portland, OR in November. Both in-person and virtual presentations will be considered.

Posted today: AMNH Invertebrate zoology is hiring a new collectuons manager (curatorial associate).

I am reassociating mosquito heads with bodies this afternoon and I got sidetracked by this BEAUTY Aedes (mucidus) grahamii - this little lady was from Entebbe, Uganda and was collected in 1961. And STILL looking fabulous @nhm-london.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social @mosquitolab.bsky.social

This is an interesting interaction for entomology folks. Found some ants that looked like they were aphid farming, but they were walking around with abdomens up, which seemed weird. Well, there was a phorid fly lurking around. Mammoth, AZ

EXCITING NEWS - BEEFLIES are getting LOVE The fluffy-flying-narwals are 1 of the 10 species to be nominated for Invertebrate of the Year @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social @royentsoc.bsky.social @amentsoc.bsky.social @patrickbarkham.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...

A gorgeous fly collected from @opwallscience.bsky.social trip to Honduras in 2023 Ormia sp. are very special Tachinidae as they have ‘ears’ on their prothorax that they use to listen for the hosts (Orthoptera) for their offspring to live in and consume 😎🤓 @dipterists.bsky.social

⭐ 2024 Top Finds/Pics ⭐ Easily one of the best photos I've ever taken; amazingly took only 1 shot! These dance #flies were hovering slowly, mating mid-air. As many do, the ♀️ is feeding on prey as a nuptial gift 🎁 given by the ♂️ Grateful that Geo Rojas Malavasi saw them 🙏 #Empididae Costa Rica

It's #BlackFLYday Here is a little cheeky Simuliid from #FlySchool24 in Costa Rica (image by the amazing @bertonemyia.bsky.social whilst we were teaching at @dipteracourse.bsky.social) (ok this is not totally black but it IS a blackfly!) (Don't you love names....)

Another "1st live photo" I assume; a GENUS this time! Thanks to an iNat user who dug in & identified this #fly as Helgreelia parkeri (Odiniidae). Genus + 2 spp. were first described by our good friend Steve Gaimari (CDFA) in 2007 Soltis Center, Costa Rica (August) @dipteracourse.bsky.social

Great photo, Matt! Melaloncha are very striking 😍

Come by the Dipterists Society meeting this evening if you're at #EntSoc24 or join virtually!

Hope to see you at the Dipterists Society meeting on Tuesday, 12 Nov, at #EntSoc24 in Phoenix! Join in person or virtually. Visit dipterists.org/annual_meeti... for more info, including the Zoom link. @jpgillung.bsky.social @bertonemyia.bsky.social @flygirlnhm.bsky.social @ento-allan.bsky.social

The #DipteristsForum AGM and Dipterists Day at the Natural History Museum, London on the 16th Nov 2024 In person or online - here talks, chat flies, see some specimens dipterists.org.uk/news/agm-dip...

Whilst in the #CostaRican mid-altitude rain forest, I came across this little cutie (yes I’ve said that about a vertebrate!) This is the first #salamander I’ve come across in the wild - informed it’s Bolitoglossa striatula - & so rather happy! #SoltisCentre @dipteracourse.bsky.social

A wonderful image taken by @bertonemyia.bsky.social of Plagiocephala latifrons, a stalk-eyed #Ullidiidae caught at #FlySchool24 @dipteracourse.bsky.social

We're all sitting comfortably as #DavidGrimaldi is taking us through Acalptrates at #FlySchool24 - 74 families (43 in Costa Rica) Up first - lets sort out the arrangement of head bristles. Some 'easy', colour-coded diagrams are a blessing #taxonomy #bristles @dipteracourse.bsky.social

Old school vs new school when it comes to Dipteran wing vein terminology.. Very handy diagram by David Grimaldi highlighting the name changes for the participants at #FlySchool24 @dipteracourse.bsky.social

This is an organised participant of @dipteracourse.bsky.social #FlySchool25 Having to check the many different names to all the different parts of the body is a steep (& often frustrating 😞) learning curve so anything to help is a bonus 👊🤓

Yesterday, I climbed up the 40+ m Canopy Tower this morning at #SoltisCentre, #CostaRica. Lots of beautiful epiphytes, Sabethes were flying around us and some amazing views What an experience #FlySchool24 @dipteracourse.bsky.social

#FlySchool24 @dipteracourse.bsky.social @jpgillung.bsky.social is talking Empids to the participants whilst Dalton & I am at the back showing each other genitalia pictures - just like the naughty kids that we are… Chileramphomyia sp - ohhhhhhhh come on! That’s ludicrous