Sadly, I missed #worldrobberflyday - but here’s some Leptarthrus brevirostris from Lochawe (VC98) last week. Excellent numbers, so a big local emergence, of a species that is near annual at the site @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @uk-soldierflies.bsky.social
My first tweet 10 years ago was a robber fly photo on #worldrobberflyday. Saw this robber fly today, thought it'll be a good post to start with on my new BlueSky account. Eye-to-eye, a Fly is eating a Fly....
Hello! We plan on having Fly Week occur annually, so mark it on your calendar! It starts on #WorldRobberFlyDay and ends on #WorldBeeFlyDay 🪰✨
A collage of robber fly art/crafts. From left to right, a stamp of a Proctacanthus, a clay robber fly, a stuffed Proctacanthus, a lino print of a robber fly, and a painted panel of (what I think to be) a Machimus!
For #WorldRobberFlyDay I'd like to show off some of the cool robber fly merch I've gotten from some super talented artists! The plush Proctacanthus is definitely one of my favorites, so she gets to sit on some of my favorite fly books! 😍 #FlyWeek #entomologistsareeasytogetgiftsfor
TIL that there's a #WorldRobberflyDay. To celebrate, here's Archilestris magnificus, a leggy tarantula hawk-mimic big enough to intimidate hummingbirds. Like many of Arizona's most sought-after birds, it's a Mexican species that rarely strays north of the border. www.inaturalist.org/observations...
Dioctria pusio from British Columbia, Canada. Photo: Werner Eigelsreiter
Laphria index from British Columbia, Canada. Photo: Werner Eigelsreiter.
Stenopogon inquinatus, British Columbia, Canada. Photo: Werner Eigelsreiter.
#WorldRobberFlyDay
#FlyWeek ... More robber fly portraits: Dioctria pusio, Laphria index, Stenopogon inquinatus. All from The Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada. Photos: Werner Eigelsreiter.
#FlyWeek #WorldRobberFlyDay Fossil head of a Lasiopogon robber fly discovered in a 16,500-year-old Arctic Ground Squirrel midden in Yukon, Canada. Several species of the genus are common in the region today. See doi.org/10.4039/tce....
a slender, grey-brown robber fly showing off its bristly legs and folded wings
Happy #WorldRobberflyDay, to those who celebrate! And why not celebrate this stylish, spectacular and deadly group of bugs! Here's a Beringian Sandpirate (Lasiopogon canus) that somehow found its way inside my house last summer... the commonest robber fly in the Yukon.
For #FlyWeek and #WorldRobberFlyDay, here's a male Efferia benedicti in the grasslands of the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada.
#WorldRobberFlyDay
1 of my favorite collecting sites - eastern-most sand dunes of #Namib Sand Sea at road C14 in Namibia - collected 10 species during 6 visits
Afroholopogon sp
Anasillomos chrysopos
Anasillomos juergeni
Anypodetus fasciatus
Anypodetus leucothrix
Astiptomyia bikos
#FlyWeek
Torsten Dikow photographing assassin fly in nature
assassin fly on isect pin
assassin fly on isect pin
habitat at HedBat NR, Limpopo, South Africa
#WorldRobberFlyDay
photographing assassin flies in nature has been a passion (scientific specimen more important to me than a photo though) - using Olympus SLR camera to capture Hoplistomerus nobilus (Loew, 1858) (Laphriinae) on slide film at Het Bad NR, Limpopo, South Africa in 2005
#FlyWeek
assassin fly with prey on an insect pin
assassin fly with prey on an insect pin
#WorldRobberFlyDay
assassin flies + their prey are fascinating - here Diogmites nigripennis (Macquart, 1847) (Dasypogoninae) with wasp prey - USNMENT00832604 - Costa Rica: Estación Biológica La Selva, 2010-08-19 - full details here n2t.net/ark:/65665/3...
#FlyWeek
broken insect collecting net
assassin fly specimen on a pin
#WorldRobberFlyDay
assassin flies are hard to catch - don’t give up, even when your net breaks in woody Fynbos vegetation in Swartberg NR, South Africa, the reward of catching a Hyperechia nigripennis (Wiedemann, 1830) for scientific research is wonderful
#FlyWeek
It’s #WorldRobberFlyDay! These amazing predatory flies are what first pulled me into the world of entomology. Today’s a great chance to shine a light on the incredible robber fly diversity across the Andes—there are still many taxa waiting to be described ...
At the @nhm-london.bsky.social we have hundreds of drawers of Asilidae, & receive requests from all over the world for either physical or digital loans
Check out these big un’s in the genus Hyperechia that I imaged for a recent request (these images are just for labels & size)
#worldrobberflyday
fossil assassin fly Burmapogon bruckschi Dikow & Grimaldi, 2014 - relationshiups unknown - in Burmese amber
fossil assassin flies Protoloewinella keilbachi Schumann, 1984 - Laphriinae - in Baltic amber
fossil assassin fly Schildia martini Dikow & Bayless 2009 - Leptogastrinae - in Dominican amber
#WorldRobberFlyDay
fossil assassin flies are amazing but also (sometimes) difficult to place taxonomically + phylogenetically
Burmese amber (100 mya) - Burmapogon bruckschi
Baltic amber (45 mya) - Protoloewinella keilbachi
Dominican amber (20 mya) - Schildia martini
#FlyWeek
Jason Londt in the field at Tierberg, South Africa
Jason Londt and Torsten Dikow in the field at Doreen Clarke NR, South Africa
award certificate with a new species described in honor of Jason Londt in 2018
#WorldRobberFlyDay
here is to a wonderful person, an incredible taxonomist/biodiversity researcher, + field collector - it’s been a privilege and an honor to meet Jason almost 26 years ago + benefit from his mentorship, collaborate on taxonomic revisions, and conduct field-work together
#FlyWeek
assassin fly Melouromyia natalensis perching on leaf
#WorldRobberFlyDay
Jason Londt photographed this beautiful Melouromyia natalensis (Ricardo, 1919) in his backyard in Pietermaritzburg in 2013 - he described genus (primarily distributed in eastern South Africa) in 2002 - many assassin-fly photos by him in Manual of Afrotropical Diptera
#FlyWeek
The @nhm-london.bsky.social recently hosted Greg Daniels - a superb Australian Asilidae expert
He moans that he is physically aging but the boy is bright as a button when it comes to going through the collection to figure out what’s what
#worldrobberflyday
map of southern Africa with localities where Jason Londt collected assassin flies between 1977-2023
Jason Londt collecting flies at Cumberland NR, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, 2004
Jason Londt collecting flies near Keimoes, Northern Cape, South Africa, 2005
Jason Londt collecting flies at Queen Elizabeth Park, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, 2019
#WorldRobberFlyDay
Jason Londt loved field-work + collected almost in every corner of South Africa in search of assassin flies - major field-work also to Namibia, Malawi, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire - 279 Asilidae specimens are now holotypes of new species he collected
#FlyWeek
an assassin fly perching on sand dune
bar graph of description of new species by Jason Londt between 1977–2019
bar graph of description of new genera by Jason Londt between 1977-2019
#WorldRobberFlyDay
Jason Londt described 585 new species + 46 new genera of Asilidae - example: species Acenphalomyia eremia Londt, 2010 from #Namib Desert + genus Acnephalomyia Londt, 2010 from Namibia + South Africa - doi.org/10.5733/afin...
#FlyWeek
Family Asilidae, Genus Triorla. Dragonfly likely long-tailed skimmer, Plathemis lydia, 2018
Large robberfly with a dragonfly catch!
#WorldRobberflyDay #insects
I didn’t know #worldrobberflyday was a thing but Asilidae are one of my favorite Dipterous families. Here’s one in my office! Taken September 7, 1997 in Columbia, MO.
#WorldRobberFlyDay
I will post a bit about Jason Londt's incredible revisionary work on fauna of Afrotropical Region - specifically southern Africa - Jason just passed away at age 82
he published between 1977 and 2020 - details in doi.org/10.3897/AfrI...
#FlyWeek
an assassin fly perching on dead vegetation
an assassin fly perching on dead vegetation
an assassin fly perching on dead vegetation
Happy #WorldRobberFlyDay !!!
a neat, beautiful, + diverse genus is Afroholopogon Londt, 1994 with 18 species endemic to Afrotropical Region - here an undescribed species from sand dunes of #Namib Desert (Namibia) perching on low, dead vegetation - tiny aerial predators of other insects
#FlyWeek
Photo of a bumblebee robber fly feeding on a ladybug. Posting this for World Robber Fly day.
English in alt
Blijkbaar is het #worldrobberflyday dus mijn #ElkeDagEenInsect is de gele hommelroofvlieg met zijn prooi, een lieveheersbeestje 🐞
Cophinopoda andrewsi robberfly from Christmas Island.
Happy #WorldRobberflyDay from this absolute unit of an Asilid spotted near the South Point of Christmas Island on Boxing Day 2016. The good folks at iNaturalist have tentatively identified this as Cophinopoda andrewsi.
A small robberfly with a long thin pale brown abdomen and long orangey-brown legs. The fly is being gently held between a finger and thumb. The fly has large eyes that take up most of it's head and has a short, stout proboscis.
A large hairy, rather fluffy looking robberfly sitting facing right on the back of the photographer's hand. The head with it's large eyes is black, the front and sides of the thorax is also black but with pale hairs on the top and rear. The abdomen is clothed in rich orangey brown hairs. The legs are quite hairy too.
For #WorldRobberflyDay I give you Leptogaster guttiventris recorded in my Norwich garden in 2021 and Laphria flava from Abernethy Forest in 2024.
Happy #WorldRobberFlyDay
